Review: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Title: The Lottery

Author: Shirley Jackson

General:

When I started with this story, everything seemed familiar, and it turns out I had read it before! I didn't remember it had this name on it, or that Shirley was the author.

Recently, I saw a video of a booktuber talking about this writer and it caught my attention, so I wanted to know more about her and I found this story. Coincidentally, I had already read it about 3 or 4 years ago or so.

Review:

It turns out that, in what I think, is a town, for some reason people gather every so often in the square to attend a lottery.

There they use an old box, which is looked after by different people every year, and in which they put little pieces of paper with the names of the citizens.

So far everything seems fine, but something very macabre is hidden behind all this.

I didn't really understand why this is happening, why do the people carry out such an extreme and brutal practice?

I was very struck by how the citizens at the beginning (and practically also until the end) take everything very naturally. The women laugh and chat; the children play....

The whole situation is totally assumed. 

I was surprised by the coldness of the people knowing that they have not been chosen. With zero ties for the hapless winner.

Apparently "The Lottery" has been practiced for a long time. Even some formalities are not fulfilled. But the end of the chosen person is always the same. 

It is not explained why they do this, but it does not detract from the quality of the story, in fact, it adds a dark touch that is very good. Your skin crawls, you know something is wrong and something horrible is going to happen, but you don't know it until the end.

As a curiosity, this story was published in a newspaper, and its reception was so negative that many people cancelled their subscription to it and the story was even banned in some places.

Just like the first time I read it I loved it. This story is the only one I have read by Shirley, but I can say that I love her style.