The Lottery

I just read the story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and I was quite shocked by it! Throughout the whole story, I was confused as to what exactly "the lottery" was and what the purpose of the story was. At the beginning, it seemed like the children were gathering stones to build a fort or play some kind of childrens game with. Then they all gathered in the square and began drawing pieces of paper out of a black box. I assumed that the person who drew the special piece of paper with the black dot on it would recieve some kind of surprise or reward, but I was horribly mistaken. Instead, Tessie drew the paper with the black dot, and the whole crowd stoned her to death with the stones that the children were gathering earlier! This conclusion was shocking and violent. I still don't know why it was tradition to do this every year, beacuse it just seems cruel to me, but I guess that it what makes the story interesting. If the story had ended with Tessie winning a large amount of money and going on her merry way, I probably wouldn't be reflecting on it now. I don't know the reason for the lottery, but it seemed horrible that the townspeople would all voluntarily do this with the risk of being killed. Nonetheless, it was intriguing how my perception of the story changed from the beginning, thinking that it was about children playing some innocent game, to the end, seeing that this game ended in murder.