Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Time: 9:20 PM
Song: One Night in Bangkok
Artist: Murray Head
Mode of Consumption: Playing on the radio before going to bed.
Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0NwB4MtnpUGEaGotcX0vmt?si=51522a8dfaee48bb
We discussed Shirley
Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” tonight at Write On. For those that haven’t
read the story, it’s about a small village that yearly has a lottery with the
winner (loser) being stoned to death by their peers.
It’s a story written
in the 1940s, and when it first appeared in “The New Yorker,” it caused a wave
of reactions from readers. In a selection from a lecture by Jackson, she discussed
how over the years people have often questioned her on the meaning of the
story.
It’s a story open to
interpretation. Is it a commentary on how society turns ritual into routine, ultimately
losing the meaning of the ritual? Is exposing the lapses in humanity when
people congregate in groups? Is it saying that people are OK with bad things happening
and being done, so long as it’s not happening to them?
Jackson admitted
that she didn’t have the answers to this. It was a story that came to her as
she walked her daughter in a stroller. She wrote it over the course of a couple
days, gave it a couple of minor edits, and didn’t feel it needed to be messed
with any more than that.
As an aspiring
writer, I was glad to see this. I sometimes worry that a story that comes too quickly
or that I don’t feel needs a lot of editing or changing might be lacking in
depth. So, I’ll shelve it. Perhaps, those are the stories that need to be told,
and we as writers, just need to get out of the way.
The strength of “The
Lottery” is that it isn’t tied to some sort of movement or specific motives. It’s
open and applicable to many potential cultural issues.
The last bit from
Jackson was that the most prevalent theme in the responses to the story was “where
do they perform lottery’s like this and can I watch them?”
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