Imagine if you lived in a town where the lottery prize was death. In the story "The lottery" by Shirley Jackson there was a town that did exactly that. This lottery happened every year for a while now. Almost everyone in the town did not like this special kind of lottery. In this town and many others in the area the prize of the lottery was you would be stoned to death. If you compared that to real life that sounds really harsh. While the story is highly unrealistic there are some similarities not only between the main character and I but also with the lottery in the book and in real life.
In the book “The Lottery” the main character Mrs. Hutchinson and I are a little alike but we are also very different. For example we are a like in that we both don’t want anything bad to happen. However I know that it is only human nature to want only good things to happen. Mrs. Hutchinson does not want to win the lottery because she and her family don’t want to die because that would be devastating. That is exactly what I would feel like if that happened to my family. On the other hand we are also different. One important way we are different is that we both like to fight to make something better; however I have never fought for a life or death situation like Mrs. Hutchinson. Before she died, Mrs. Hutchinson was making excuses to not win the lottery sadly she did not win that fight.
Although Mrs. Hutchinson and I have similarity the lottery in this story is very different then our lottery today. Our lottery today goes like this you buy a ticket and then you see if you win and the prize you receive is something you want. But the lottery in the short story was total different you would get a horrible surprise the surprise is that the towns people stone you to your death if you win. It is hard to think that people in the town would buy a lottery ticket if they knew there was a chance that they would die. That makes no sense. As you can see these two lotteries are nothing alike.
In conclusion, while I could relate myself to the main character and the idea of the lottery this story is highly unrealistic because no one wanted to win this lottery. If you compared your life to Mrs. Hutchinson’s life you could see that your life isn’t that bad. Shirley Jackson wrote this book to make a statement and the statement is things aren’t as always as they seem.
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