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The Lottery
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The Lottery
Jackson’s novel is an example of a story when the author gives numerous hints in the text, but the crux of the matter becomes clear in the last passages. The ending of the story is not just surprising but stunning. In the beginning, no one could predict such a violent denouement. To some extent, the process of drawing the lottery reminds of the one in Suzanne Collins’s novel The Hunger Games. Although it was published half a century after Jackson’s The Lottery, this set of novels adapted into films seems to be more popular and recognizable nowadays. When watching, I began to feel something suspicious after Mr. Summers suggested starting the lottery to get it over with and to go back to work, because the lottery should not be unpleasant, so people wanted to finish it as fast as possible. The previously mentioned hints – piles of stones, a black box, a saying “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”, the unwillingness of 300 people to help Mr. Summers with a stool –foreshadow the ending to some extent. However, the dots still are not connected until the final scene. Moreover, Jackson did not want to connect them gradually. Thereby, she created an effect of a bomb revealing the real purpose of the stones, and showed the presumed winner. To lull the readers, the author, for example, added some lines of ordinary conversation among the participants of the lottery, described the day as a clear and sunny, and emphasized the liberty of the playing children as they were free from school. However, I would say that the feeling of something wrong appeared from time to time, at least just because you know that the story about an ordinary lottery and a happy winner would not draw the attention of readers.
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