The lottery by Shirley Jackson:
In a post of 250 words, please respond to one of the following reading guide questions:
What seems to have been the original purpose of the lottery?
There are many interpretations of this story. If, for the purpose of this class, we assume that Jackson is trying to make statement about human nature, what exactly, is she trying to say?
Do you think any of the characters feel the lottery is wrong? If yes, why don’t any of those characters protest it?
Does tradition justify the lottery?
Can you make any connections between Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments and Jackson’s story?
Consider Zimbardo’s “7 Social Processes for Greasing the Slippery Slope of Evil.” Do you see any of those processes in play in “The Lottery”?