Brief Summary

"The Lottery" tells a story of a small American town which on the surface appears to be the home to roughly 300 average Americans. The town is readying itself for a ritual known only to the reader as "the lottery". The story begins on the clear and sunny morning of June 27th, however the mood of its residents is one of a strange, eerie nervousness. Children gather stones in hopes of a good harvest in the coming year, and the town collects around a small black box. In the first round of the lottery, the head of each household draws a slip of paper from the black box, followed by the second round where each family member draws a slip. After, each person checks their paper to see who's carries a black dot at the center. Tessie, a woman who arrives late to the lottery discovers that her paper bears the black dot, and such 'wins' the lottery. For her prize, Tessie is then stoned to death by the town.

Tuesday

On Morano

Though in my initial read of Morano's essay I felt that she didn't say much beyond the including of a few techniques used for deciphering fictional stories, I think her assessment of a nonfictional story I feel plays a great deal of importance in reading a story like "The Lottery". Due to its realistic nature, and especially considering the reaction to the story mentioned earlier, the story presents itself as a realistic depiction of suburban life with a twist of mystery. Morano describes what is called the "reality warp" in her essay as an element of fiction. The reality warp is characterized by some contortion of reality, or a shift of our world into the world of the story. "The Lottery" shifts suburban reality into the reality of Jackson's story. Not only did she shift reality, she did it very well, so well that people mistook Jackson's fictional story for a factual representation of the town she came from.
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