Lottery Essays - Lottery, Lotteries In The United States

Lottery The Lottery was a story of a town's old superstious traditon. The purpose of the lottery was to see who would be sacrificed so that the harvest would be plentiful. The town did whatever it could so that the harvest would be plentiful, even kill one of their loved ones. The character Mrs. Hutchinson was the "winner" of that years harvest and was stone to death by the town's people. Her own son even threw a couple of pebbles at her. Mrs. Hutchinson doesn't see the evil in the lottery until she realizes that she could be the"winner." It was just another social gathering to her until she was confronted with her ultimate fate. At the beginning of the story, Mrs. Hutchinson's attitude acts like it's just like any other day. She knew that it was the day of the lottery, but it never crossed her mind that maybe she could die today. She walked in late and made small talk with her friends, then met with her family. It was any other social event. She never showed fear that today could be her last day living cause it never crossed her mind. Towards the middle of the story, her family gets the black dot. Meaning that they all have to choose a sheet of paper. One of them is marked and that means that the person who receives the marked sheet is going to be sacrificed. Mrs. Hutchinson yells out that her husband was rushed during the choosing of which family gets the black dot. It seems like she is worried that a member of her family is going to die. But when her family is asked how many members are in the family, she adds her two daughters that are married into the count. Mrs. Hutchinson tried to lower the odds of her getting the black dotted card by adding two family members who shouldn't be counted. The two daughters weren't allowed to pick cards with their immediate family because it was against lottery rules because they were already married and had their husband's name. Mrs. Hutchinson is now getting paranoid. She mutters that they should start overt because it wasn't fair how her husband was rushed. She's also pretty nervous about the outcome. Her voice raised a little as she tried to convince the people around her to start the lottery over again. At the end of the story she had an epiphany. She realized she was going to die for an unfair reason. She says over and over again that it wasn't fair, what she was dying for. She starts to yell out to everyone that this was unfair but she was too late. Suddenly the social gathering wasn't as pleasant as it first was for her. The people she was making small talk with, her friends, and even her own son were picking up rocks and preparing to throw them at her. Mrs. Hutchinson didn't say anything about the lottery until she realized that she was the victim. Maybe her words could have stopped the lottery before it happened again, but she chose to keep her thoughts to herself. She definantly would have found some people who felt the same way about the lottery. She could have possibly formed a group to protest the lottery, but by her just doing nothing about it, it led to her own demise. The message rang pretty clear in my ears as I read the story. The author was trying to say that humans usually don't get involved until we have to or until it involves us. Maybe our society should do the same. Instead of waiting for a problem to happen, we as a society should go out and try prevent it.

Sample Essay on Writing Short Stories - Comparison of Two Short Stories

Sample Essay on Writing Short Stories - Comparison of Two Short StoriesThe sample essay should serve as a 'checklist' for the rest of the writing assignments and make a student understand how to prepare a short story or poem for publication. It can be a refresher on the basics of literary form, structure, style, and grammar.In the first paragraph, there is a quotation from 'The Great Gatsby' that describes how great a short story is compared to a novel. A review of the structure of the short story is provided in the second paragraph. Briefly, the two stories are very different and one clearly surpassed the other.The structure of the short story is based on an act, subject, theme, and action. The third paragraph takes the reader back to the first paragraph and compares both short stories to the central idea of each. The comparison is a logical one. The central idea of each story is about comparing or contrasting two opposing things, so the comparison is complete.After the first paragr aph, there is a brief synopsis of the first short story. This provides synopses of the main features and characteristics of the first story, as well as providing context for the events of the short story and the character in each story.The next paragraph outlines the theme of the short story. It is essential that the writer makes the theme clear and memorable. In the third paragraph, both short stories are compared to each other and the theme of each is understood. The writer's role is to provide context for the comparison, and also to describe the contrast of one story against the other.The last two paragraphs summarize the essay. This is the part of the essay where the writer brings the essay to a close. He or she tells the reader why this essay is useful and provides an example of a literary work that demonstrates the same structure.The final paragraph is the conclusion to the essay. The writer reminds the reader that they now have the briefest glimpse of each story and highlight s what they learned. It is the writer's task to build upon the lessons learned.Each student should complete this sample essay comparing two short stories when completing their first short story writing assignment. Each student will find it difficult to achieve the standard of the standard being measured in this essay.