The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. From the title, I understood that this story was not going to be a happy one, whenever there is a lottery taking place in an old town, it can never be a good thing. As I started reading I saw that the characters didn’t take the lottery as seriously as they did before, even though they gave great importance to it. The first question on my mind was “Why?”, where did this tradition come from?, why would they stone someone every year? Now, everyone is connected to this tradition and probably don’t know why they are doing it either. This is a dystopia story that takes place in the past, around the time it was written, and I thought it was a much better one than the ones written these days. The terrible ending made the story even more strong and made us understand how traditions sometimes lose meaning in time, but people are too scared to break it, they just follow the crowd. In the leadership of someone that remembers the old times that the tradition took place, teaching their children this is how it must be, they stone their friends for no reason. I believe that’s why the author didn’t say anything about where it came from, to show that it had no meaning. Another interesting part was that the woman was left at home by her family, why did her children not tell her they were going to the lottery?, and the woman says that the daughters should also take their chance even if they are in their husbands families, does she not care if they die? The author leaves us with many questions and horror.