Letter from Mrs. Hutchinson to The Council of the Village:
I am writing to you about the lottery which we hold every year. In this lottery
which a person is chosen at random and is stoned to death. I understand that you believe
that since it has been tradition for so long and therefore, it is okay. It has been going on
for as long as I can remember. This method has been around since the time when Jesus
walked the earth. We see it in all kinds of stories in the Bible. We definitely have to
pick somebody in the village for the lottery. We have to have s person that we know or
the crops might go bad. The idea of a lottery makes it fair for all those who participate.
This way there is no one person that is singled out of the group. It also brings a sense of
"family values", at least in my family. With all everyone in my family being so busy it is
very rare that all the members of my family are together for any reason of the lottery. It
is amazing the way that all the families come together in anticipation. In this right, it
also gives our village a sense of community and brings us closer together. Everybody
knows everybody and the lottery draws us yet closer together. It is very rare to see a
whole community come together and I am glad to be part of one that does. Leadership is
a quality the men in out village have. The reason they have this quality is due to the men
taking charge and picking for their families in the lottery. If the did not pick something
could go wrong with the crops. Once the whole lottery is all over the crops will be better
off according to the superstition. This helps the village from running out of food, and I
do not want to see my family starving to death.
Though it is a tradition that has been around for ages, the lottery is just not right.
I find it to be quite immoral. By killing mothers and fathers of children
...