Print out, read, and annotate The Lottery (Shirley Jackson)
For this week’s blog post my assignment was to read The Lottery (Shirley Jackson), and answer a couple of questions. The story takes place in a small village of about 300 people. There is an annual lottery and the “winner” gets stoned to death by the other villagers. I was assigned to answer these questions: Are there any American traditions that share similarities with the lottery tradition in the village? The following link leads to an article that illustrates the tradition of Americans which I believe shares similarities with the lottery tradition in the village, it’s from TIME.com and is titled Why Won’t America Go Metric? http://time.com/3633514/why-wont-america-go-metric/. And the second question was: When have you made an important choice to break away or not break away from a strong cultural tradition you shared with a family, friend, or culture? I’ll answer these questions below. Are there any American traditions that share similarities with the lottery tradition in the village? I think the American tradition of using our own measurement system instead of switching to the metric system shares some similarities with the lottery tradition in the village. Both traditions cause a lot of unnecessary problems. And if we (America) and the people in the story decided to give up our old traditions these problems would not exist. The lottery results in a dead family member, which can be very problematic for the remaining family members. As an example, the children and family of whomever got stoned have witnessed the traumatic death of a family member and are most likely scarred for life. Americans not switching to the metric system also results in some problems, even though they seem minor compared to the aftermath of a stoning. One of these problems is that communication between different countries becomes more difficult when they are using different measurement systems. For example, if someone from America includes measurements in communication with another country, they will likely be in inches, feet, or yards. But, if whoever receives that email is in one of the many countries using the metric system, they’ll then have to convert those measurements, which causes many unnecessary problems. In conclusion, the tradition of the lottery in the village and the tradition of Americans keeping our outdated measuring system may be very different, but they share similarities in that they both cause needless problems. Switch to metric, no confusion. Don’t stone a random person, no distraught family members. When have you made an important choice to break away or not break away from a strong cultural tradition you shared with a family, friend, or culture? “That looks good” I thought as I looked at the ice cream behind the glass freezer door at Wegman’s. “That beef jerky sounds good too”, “Maybe I’ll get two of them”. I should never go grocery shopping without a list, it always ends badly. I get home and I’m like “Oops, I didn’t buy any real food, just snacks”. I remember when I used to go grocery shopping with my parents, but I guess that’s a family tradition we’ve broke away from. Ever since getting a real job and graduating high school it’s been increasingly difficult to convince my parents to buy food for me. When I was younger (In elementary-middle school), I’d just throw things in the cart and hope my mom/dad would buy whatever it was. Now I find myself having to go grocery shopping on my own quite often, and as I mentioned previously, a grocery list is a must so I don’t spend all my funds on junk food. It was much easier having my parents buy food, they’d buy actual food, and I’d choose snacks and such, now I must buy the actual food. I kind of wish it’s a tradition we could have continued, but I guess doing your own grocery shopping is part of becoming a grown up. I really dislike the idea of becoming an “adult”, there is so many new responsibilities, and it seems the older you get, the more you are forced to make difficult choices of whether to maintain a tradition or break away from it.
1 Comment
10/6/2017 02:33:33
Jesse, I never thought of not using the metric system as a huge problem until you brought up communication among the U.S. and other countries. I definitely found your argument interesting to read. I cannot yet relate to your personal narrative, as my whole family still food shops together, but I can imagine how stressful it is suddenly having to be concearned about funding your basic needs.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Blog Categories
All
|