The Lottey
The Lottery
By Shirley Jackson
My short story the lottery takes place in a village that consists of about three hundred people. Even though it gives you no date besides it’s the morning of June 27th. The story obviously takes place in the past because the village is independent the crops they grow are the food they eat. On this Particular evening everyone in the town is gathering at the center. For a lottery of some sort, Waiting for the lottery to happen everyone is making there own little piles of rocks. It doesn’t really fill you in with all the details but gives little hints that something odd is happening.
Mr.Summers the owner of the coal mine comes to the center and asks if everyone is there and ready. Then he sets a black box with little pieces of white paper on a stool in front of everyone. They are told one by one to come grab a piece of paper and go back to your spot but not to look at it yet. Then when told to look at the paper quite whispers went through the crowd, "where is it", and "whose got it". Then all the papers where blank except one the one with the black spot made by Mr.Summers the night before with a piece of coal. It was Tessie Hutchinson who had it and when the crowd saw this suddenly they were upon hurling rocks at her head as she screamed for them to stop.
I personally liked the story a lot. Just because I knew something weird was happening but I didn’t see that ending coming at all. It really kept me guessing. I definitely don’t agree with the theme of the story though. Which is that human sacrifice is necessary for plentiful crops. The subject of the story, being lottery’s or old traditions. You can tell this story takes place a long time ago because humans still believed in such crazy superstitions as this one. I also think the author was trying to reveal just how much human beliefs and superstitions have changed over the years.
One of my favorite movies is a documentary call Darius Goes West.
The subject of this movie is taking a 15 year old west across America because he has never left Athens. The theme of this movie is to raise awareness for DMD. Which is a serious disease that affects many of today’s youth. It is a disease where you would be lucky to make it the age of 20. Logan Smalley the person, who put this movie together, did an extreme job on delivering the theme to the viewer. He did this by talking with professors on the topic and taping there whole trip across the U.S. showed just how hard it s for the handicapped to get around, then also by talking with other kids and their parents who had the same disease.
The Beach by Myles Shepley
It was great to spend this past summer at the beach in Destin, Florida. As soon as we got there, the second you step out of the car, you can feel the warmth of the sun all over your body as if were less than a hundred yards away. Once we got unloaded and ready to go down to the beach, the warm pure white sand feels so soft to the bottom of your feet as you sink in ankle deep with every step. It feels almost as if it’s massaging your feet with every step. Then after laying on the sand for a while soaking up the warmth of the sun you go into to the cool ocean water to cool off which feels so reliving after sweating so much lying in the sun.
There’s nothing like waking up in the morning at the beach stepping out onto the balcony an looking out over the beautiful ocean crystal clear blue water far as the eye can see. Then when you get someone else up and ready to go down to the beach you head down. As soon as you get there you see all the gorgeous girls walking around in their little bikinis. The type of girls that look like they might be Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders. But best of all my favorite thing to see at the beach is the expression on my brothers faces the whole time we are there which is just happiness it’s awesome to see us just having so much fun.
Another one of my favorite things at the beach is dinner. After hanging out at the beach all day laying in the hot sun with nothing but fluids in your stomach when it comes dinner time you can smell the food before it even starts cooking. The smell of a good steak and baked potatoes one night, then fresh salmon and shrimp another night well it just smells like a little bit of heaven. Waking up in the morning to the smell of the salt-water aroma its just so relaxing. Then as soon as you get down to the pool area and beach the smell of sunscreen and sun tan lotion hits you harder than a brick to the face.
When you get up in the morning you can almost taste the humidity in the air pretty much instantly making you want to quench your thirst. Down on the hot beach after lying out just sweating like a dog the taste of that ice cold drink flowing down your throat its just so soothing. When dinner time comes around you are so happy because you have nothing but the bitter taste of salt water in your mouth from wrestling around in the ocean all day. Eating a good sirloin steak or fine piece of salmon hot off the grill the taste is just literally mouth watering.
In the morning the sound of the waves hitting up against the shore might just be the most relaxing sound I know. At night time if you leave the patio door open and hear that relaxing sound as you fall asleep its so peaceful it will have you asleep in no time. The whole trick where you put a seashell to your ear to hear the ocean it just doesn’t do the real sound justice at all. Also another relaxing sound is the sound of laughter coming from all my brothers and friends just having a good time you feel as if nothing could go wrong. Then comes time to leave and you have to put up with the sad agonizing sound of my little three-year-old niece crying her heart because she wants so badly for this time to never end. But it has to at least until next year.
Jeanne Huston's It Can't Be Helped
It Can’t Be Helped is a story where the author Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston is the main character of the story. She is a very young Japanese girl, so the story is about how hard it was for her growing up here in the United States during the 1940’s with world war two going on. She loses her father real early in life because he gets taken away to prison. This happening was real hard on her family because he was the backbone of the family. He made all the decisions, he got food on the table, and he was just a jack-of-all-trades as they refer to him in the story.
She started off living in Ocean Park, near Santa Monica in a big house where they were the only Japanese family in the neighborhood. Her father liked it that way, but when he got taken away her mom not knowing what to do moved them to terminal island where it was a lot poorer it was a ghetto. Her house nothing more than a mere shack. They had family there that was the Jeanne’s Aunt an Uncle that was there reason, I believe, for them moving there. This was Jeanne’s first time ever being around other Japanese or going to school with them. And she was terrified of them because they where a lot tougher and meaner kids than her brother and her. Her brother and her would meet up after school and decide if they should run straight home or spilt up and take off. "At the time it seemed like years but in fact we had been there for two months", Jeanne commented. But the navy decided to clear Terminal Island completely. They were given forty-eight hours to clear out.
At this time in the story it shows just how strong a woman her mom is. What happens is the second-hand dealers are walking around just offering embarrassing prices for the goods on the island from the people, most of the time the people would take the money just because they needed it so bad and because they only had forty-eight hours to clear the island. When they offered Jeanne’s mom fifteen dollars for a three hundred dollar china set she got so angry that she smashed everyone of the dishes on the floor hurling near the dealer. This might not have been the best reaction, but I think it defiantly shows character in the fact that she wouldn’t settle for just any price.
The government then moved them to another little ghetto this time in downtown Los Angles. Here she experienced a lot of racism for example even in school she said her teacher would ignore or and would never help or with her work. They finally would make their third and final move. Her and all her brothers were relived to get out of downtown L.A because recently there had been numerous attacks on the Japanese there. They were moved to a camp called Manzanar where everyone was Japanese and greeted them as they got off the bus.
The author’s reason for writing this story I think was to share her experiences with the wold so we would know and have some understanding of how hard it was her and her people growing up with the war going on. Jeanne and I quote said, "writing about Manzanar was a way of coming to terms with the impact of the experience on her whole life." I think it was just something that was bottled up for so long and writing about it was a way to get it off her chest.
I am not to sure exactly what the author intended the reader to come away with after reading this story. But I know I came away with a sense of just how easy I got it in life. Sure life’s not perfect but after seeing what she went through growing up being forced to move every few months and having no say so in where that move is either and just seeing that she overcame all this. That just lets me know whatever obstacles in life I may come across I think I will be able to deal with it.
Summary
I picked my second article because it’s about something I do all the time. It’s all about poker and how it’s not as innocent as it looks. I personally think the article is ridiculous. They go so far as to say gambling could lead to drug use, unprotected sex, and criminal activity. That’s just absurd, I mean if gambling could lead to those things you could write an article with just about anything saying it would lead to criminal activity.
Then they give you all these statistics. Such as people who gamble before the age of twenty are three times as likely to come addicted to gambling, 50% of people who gamble before the age of twenty will become binge drinkers, and 75% of the people will smoke weed. Where did they even get these crazy statistics I know didn’t check every person whose gambled before the age of twenty.
The article is for the most apart about gambling addiction being a problem. I can agree with that. Gambling addiction can lead to many problems such as owing money and stealing to pay off these debts. I just think the article takes it a little bit far saying gamblers will most likely binge-drink and smoke weed.
Quotes & Questions
The first quote that really stood at for me was, that experts say television is one of if not the main reason for so many teens playing poker. Which I would guess is probably true.
The second quote that stood out was that people who gamble early in age would most likely be binge-drinkers and do criminal activity. I think that’s non-sense.
The first question I would ask is. Where did they get those statistics that, 50% of people who gamble before the age of twenty will become binge-drinkers, and 75% of the people will smoke weed? Because I don’t think it could be accurate
Another Question would be Is that guy who wrote this really just mad because he’s no good at poker?
Main Idea
The main idea of the article is that gambling addiction is a serous problem.
It says gambling can lead to spending money that was suppose to be for other things on gambling such as rent, insurance, collage money
It says gambling can lead to stealing to pay off debts.
It also says gambling can lead to missing important events like school
