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An analysis of "the lottery
The good and bad of lottery
Essays about the lottery
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Working day and night can seem remarkably stressful; as a result, people tend to believe engaging in the lottery will effectively change their lives. Although this may be true, the lottery will change lives for the worst. Lotteries are a form of gambling in which you purchase a ticket in hopes of winning a fortune. In the final analysis, lotteries have been proven to ultimately devastate and bankrupt existence. Participating in the lottery is a hypnotizing game that lures innocent people to waste their time, throw away their money, and destroy their lives.
To begin with, engaging in the lottery will surely misuse American’s time. To demonstrate, www.theweek.com, a fantastic website for lottery information, proclaimed, “Last year, according
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According to www.ranker.com, the data results state, “...there has been a curse on lottery big winners. Some winners have encountered strange deaths, lived tragedies, ended up as murder victims, committed suicide, or met an otherwise untimely death” (“11 Lottery Winners”) Consequently, the challenging, agonizing effort, that these eleven people went through to win, ended up back-stabbing them, and destroying them and their life. Ranker.com provides the chilling, authentic truth of the consequences these people had to face in the price of a lottery ticket when it announces, “At the age of 40, he won the $30 million jackpot. After he won, he couldn't say no to those who asked for money, even letting homeless people live in his home. That trust could have been his downfall. After Dorice Donegan "Dee-Dee" Moore "befriended" Abraham, he went missing. He was eventually found buried in a concrete slab at the home of Moore's boyfriend, and she was convicted of his murder”As can be seen throughout the evidence, it is conspicuous that engaging in the lottery will demolish everything that others love. This is because all the determined attempts the eleven people achieved, eventually lead them to the …show more content…
For instance, lotteries can be used to save money and promote good. According to www.businesstime.org, “Lotteries, in fact, are being used not only to promote savings but to encourage all sorts of behavior that’s good for society.” (“Gambling for Good”) However, I disagree that lotteries are acceptable for society because, as recent research has shown, “While the lucky winner may feel a sense of exhilaration, there can be huge downsides of the lottery...With odds stacked sky-high against actually winning a jackpot, lottery players lose an average of 47 cents on the dollar for each ticket. With such low payouts, tickets act as an implicit tax of 38 percent…(“How Lotteries are Bad”)” (www.thinkprogress.org) Therefore, playing in the lottery cannot be a positive act in society because of how much damage it causes. If the game of gambling was a truly palatable behavior there wouldn’t be so many chaotic consequences after people play it. Given these points, it is evident that participating in the lottery will consume all the time and money that people struggled so vigorously to get. But most of all, it will eradicate everything they hold
In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the reader is introduced to a utopian community who practice the tradition of a lottery every year. At first glance, it seems like a nice day and the kids are just collecting rocks while waiting for their parents to arrive. All of the citizens show some excitement over the upcoming the lottery. The text states,
We see a very disturbing ending in the Shirley Jackson’s, The Lottery where the reader believes that the lottery in mention is solely a monetary game of chance, like in our lives presently. However,
Has the lottery helped education as promised? There has been evidence in the Bible and ancient Rome texts that lotteries can be traced all the way back to Europe in the 15th century (Willmann 1). After that the lotteries made their way across the Atlantic from England to the United States.The first American lottery was established in Puerto Rico in 1934. This was followed by the New Hampshire lottery in 1964.The entire history of the lottery includes the debate over whether or not it is ethical.Lotteries are not only unethical but also ineffective ways to raise state revenues for education.
The following two paragraphs are a summary of Gloria Jimenez's essay Against the Odds and Against the Common Good. States should neither allow nor encourage state-run lotteries. There are five major arguments that people use to defend lotteries. One is that most lotteries are run honestly, but if gambling is harmful to society it is irrelevant to argue if they are honest or not. The second is that lotteries create jobs, but there are only a small handful of jobs that would be eliminated if lotteries were put out of business. Another argument that would support keeping lotteries is that, other than gambling addicts, people freely choose to buy lottery tickets. This is true, however, there are misleading advertisements that may cause people to buy tickets under false pretenses.
“Why We Keep Playing the Lottery”, by freelance journalist Adam Piore takes a very in depth look as to what drives millions of Americans to continually play the lottery when their chances of winning are virtually non-existent. He believes that because the odds of winning the lottery are so small that Americans lose the ability to conceptualize how unlikely it is that they are going to win, and therefore the risk of playing has less to do with the outcome, and more to do with hope that they are feeling when they decide to play. It 's essentially, "a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale." (Piore 700) He also states that many Americans would rather play the lottery thinking ,"boy, I could win $100 million" (705) as opposed to thinking about all of the money they could lose over time.
When most people play the lottery today, they think about having wealth. Generally, people who win are happy about it whether they win one dollar or a million. The lottery in our society has grown to support education and it is often worth several million dollars. Usually, the winner of the lottery gains a lot of recognition for the money they win. But what would happen if there was a small town where people held a yearly lottery in which the “winner” was the member of the town who was not sacrificed? This question is answered in Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery.” In reading this story, and reading literary criticism about the story, there were many symbols and much symbolism in this story.
The Lottery gains through selling tickets a massive amount of utility (money/pleasure). Much more than one person who buys a lottery
Typically, when someone thinks of a lottery they think of something positive and exciting but contrary to this idea in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the connotation has an entirely different meaning. As the story begins, readers lean towards the belief that the town in which Jackson depicts is filled with happiness and joy. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson 247) We soon realize that this notion is far from the truth. As the townspeople gather in the square for the annual lottery, which sole purpose is to stone someone to death by randomly pulling a paper out of a black box with a black dot on it, it is learned
In the Article “Lotteries Cheat, Corrupt the People” George Will presents the idea that lotteries are bad for the people, stating that legal gambling boost the productivity of illegal gambling, victimizing poor and minorities populations, and painful way of raising revenue. Will gives many reasons as to why he believes gambling is bad and backs his opinion with many facts on percentages of losers as well as quotes from Thomas Jefferson on the importance of hard work. Although Will presents many different facts I disagree with the general statement that “Lotteries Cheat, Corrupt the People” The reason a Lottery is good for the people starts with the mental aspect, some people can’t live without gambling much like those with a coffee addiction
Did you know that Merle and Patricia Butler from Red Bud, Illinois and three teachers from Baltimore Maryland won the biggest lottery in American history at $656 million dollars? That means every person acquired $218.6 million dollars each from the lottery (Carlyle). Unfortunately, the citizens of Shirley Jacksons’ fantasy short story “The Lottery” were not imbursed with money, but were stoned to death by their peers. “The Lottery” is a lottery of death in which the town uses to keep the population down (Voth). The story consist of many subjects to analyze which include: irony, imagery, and pathos.
“The Lottery” is a story written by Shirley Jackson. By looking at the title you may think about money prize. In this story takes the readers expectation to another level. By the two words of the title there is no way the reader did not get hook to reading this story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson, uses symbolism, irony, and imagery.
“The Lottery” was quite disturbing to read. It is an very unusual story that has an ending that will have you baffled. You will want to reread certain parts to see if there is anything thing that you could have missed. The title of the short story is also misleading. In most cases the lottery is a good thing. People don’t win punishment and lotteries don’t hurt them. But in this story it does just that. The author did a great job of telling how anyone and everyone can follow tradition blindly. It is dangerous not to have a mind of your own and to just follow the crowd even if you don’t understand on agree on why something is happening.
Proponents support lottery referendums because it is the best way to raise money voluntarily without raising taxes. People who play the lottery volunteer their money. However, lotteries do not necessarily prevent tax increases. In a study conducted by Money magazine, tax revenue was found to have increased by 21.7 percent over a five-year period in lottery states while only 7.
It is funny how life works out sometimes. You never know what you are going to get. ‘The Lottery’ is a story about a small village that holds a lottery drawing in the middle of the town square. The “winner” of the lottery is then stoned by the town’s people. This piece of literature provides a clear example that things in life are not always what they seem.
The lottery is something everyone wants to win no matter what the prize. People buy their tickets and await their fates. Some people win the lottery and many more lose. Losing the lottery causes something inside of us to die, but it is almost impossible to quit playing. The gambling becomes an addiction. The reason why people are constantly drawn to these lotteries is because deep down, the people who play them are convinced they can win.