Lottery and Random Number Selection

    "The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice.  The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens.  On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate.  Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice.  Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about.  Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective

The lottery in this country is a big past time for Americans. It gives hope to the hopeless and disappointment to a multitude of participants. A quick view of statistical information regarding the lottery shows that out of all people who take part in this country wide phenomenon, each individual person has a 1 in 175,223,510 chance of hitting the jackpot (AmericanStatisticalAssociation.org). The author of “Against The Odds and Against the Common Good”, argues that the state lotteries are “urging people to gamble”. Gloria Jimenez, of whom is the author of “Against The Odds and Against the Common Good”, creates assumptions that support her stance on her argument. Jimenez also uses the viewpoint from people who disagree with her logic, by stating various counter statements that contradict her stance. To fully understand Jimenez, we have to view the different factors of her stance on why states should not be urging people to gamble, assumptions that she makes to support her stance and countering views of people who don’t necessarily agree with her argument.

     When we are introduced to the lottery, we see the traditions that are currently observed. These include

When people think of a lottery, they draw an image with a big amount of money in head. However in the story “The Lottery”, the price is death. It starts in the morning of a bright,

Hicks, Jennifer. “Overview of the Lottery.” Chattanooga State. Detroit: Gale, 2002. From Literature Resource Center.

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published on June 26, 1948. The story was initially met with negative critical reception due to its violent nature and portrayal of the potentially dangerous nature of human society. It was even banned in some countries. However, “The Lottery” is now widely accepted as a classic American short story and is used in classrooms throughout the country.

Other states lottery programs can be used as a blueprint to establish a lottery in the State of Alabama. As an example, the State of Oregon takes the lottery’s revenue and distributes it into four groups. These fours groups are “Public Education”, which receives 57%, 27% is given to the “Economic Development [and] Job Creation”, “Problem gambling treatment” receives the least, at a total of 1%, the last 15% is evenly divided into two groups of 7.5% which goes to both

When I think of the lottery, I think of a game basically where they choose one number and something or something gets chosen.

“The Lottery,” leaves the reader guessing until the end, wondering what the lottery consists of.

As an illustration, the author believes that the chance of winning the lottery is extremely slim, by stating, “Powerball lottery, for example, have a 1 in 292,201,338 chance of winning the jackpot. That’s like putting into a hat the names of nearly everyone in the U.S. and hoping your name is pulled out”. (1) For this reason,

Lottery players from all over the world are asking what does it really takes to win the lottery? And the answer may be a bit surprising. A player must first determine what lottery game they wish to play and once they have decided which game is best suited for them then they should develop some type of plan or strategy to decipher the numbers. This will take time and a lot of effort on the player’s part.

The Lottery begins like any other day. Clear and sunny skies, flowers blossoming, and green grass. Seemingly nothing out of the ordinary. Then people begin to gather in the town square. What is this lottery that is taking place? Do the people of the town agree with it? These questions can only be answered by exploring the minds of the people in the town.

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the small village, at first, seems to be lovely, full of tradition, with the townspeople fulfilling their civic duties, but instead this story is bursting with contrast. The expectations that the reader has are increasingly altered. The title of this short story raises hope, for in our society the term “lottery” typically is associated with winning money or other perceived “good” things. Most people associate winning a lottery with luck, yet Jackson twists this notion around and the luck in this village is with each of the losers.

The lottery is usually associated with beating the odds and winning something extravagant. In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”, the reader is led to believe the story is about something cheerful and happy given the setting of a warm summer day and children out of school for the summer. Jackson turns winning the lottery into a bad thing. Of 300 villagers Tessie Hutchinson shows up late, claiming she forgot about the annual lottery drawing, but seems very excited to have made it on time. When Tessie was in no danger she is gossiping with neighbors and encourages her husband to draw for the winner. Jackson curiously builds up the character of Tessie so that it seems she is blinded by tradition until she becomes a victim of it

Lottery is one of the best things that has ever happened to human kind especially those that dream high and but their dreams don’t come to life because they don’t have what it takes to make it happen. Lotteries are in various categories such as sweep stakes, scratch off, the Jackpot and even the green card lottery. The lottery that is being focused in this argument is the jackpot one. When individuals or people in general buy the lottery ticket their hopes are high, and they anxiously await with anticipation hoping to win. If they don’t win, they never give up, for they know that there is always next time and they keep playing. Some people urge that playing lottery is a bad idea because people end up getting