The Lottery
The Lottery is a short story of American author Shirley Jackson from the year 1948. It is about a ritual in a village in rural areas of the United States, where every year a lottery is organized, the " winner" is stoned.
The critically acclaimed story that Jackson is the most famous work to date, was received extremely controversial from the audience. Many readers of The New Yorker magazine, in which they first appeared, announced after the release of their subscriptions, in the South African Union of the title was banned. The story was adapted in several formats, including a radio play (1951 ), a ballet (1953 ), a television film (1996) and an opera.
Action
In a U.S. village takes place every year the so-called lottery on June 27. Here, a family is first drawn, then one is selected within the family determined by a re- draw. This is then stoned by the whole population of the village to death. The villagers believe that the welfare of the community is dependent on this existing since the time of the founding ritual.
The plot is strictly chronologically. The reader learns only at the end, what awaits the winner of the lottery. The origin of the ritual is not explained in the story.
Reception
The story appeared in the issue of June 26, 1948 in the famous cultural magazine The New Yorker. Shortly after the publication wrote many angry readers hateful letters to both the editors of the magazine as well as on the author's own way, Jackson was forced to justify the story in the newspaper San Francisco Chronicle on 22 July of the year. Jackson's biographer Judy Oppenheimer described the fuss about the history as the greatest outburst of anger, fear, rage, and you do not like intense fascination that had triggered a publication of the magazine.
In the January 1984 edition of Playboy magazine, the story came from a list of the 30 most frequently banned from U.S. schools and libraries literary works in 17th
Adaptations
1951 a first radio play version of the short story was broadcast on the radio station NBC. There followed in 1955 a theater version, which was also broadcast on television. The script comes to Ellen M. Violett.
In 1969, the first film adaptation by Larry Yust, who made a short film as part of a collection of short stories for the Encyclopedia Britannica on the basis of the story. The film is considered the second best selling training film in the U.S. and was supplemented by a commentary literature expert James Durbin.
Anthony Spinner wrote in the 1990s, a script for a television movie that was first aired in 1996 in the program of NBC. Directed by Daniel Sackman. In this adaptation of the plot from the perspective of a stranger is told that enters by chance in the city, and describes his version of events, will complement the action through a love story as well as explanations about the reasons for the " lottery " that are not in the original appeared. The film was nominated for a Saturn Award in 1997, but did not win this.
Influence on literature and pop culture
The story influenced numerous other authors, and has been referenced in many works in literature, film and music. In 1955 appeared a science fiction short story, The Public Hating, Steve Allen, who moves the plot of The Lottery in a dystopian future. Other allusions and parodies of the story can be found for example in the television series South Park and Sliders as well as in songs of Marilyn Manson (Man That You Fear ) and SEM. Recently fell parallels in the successful book / movie series " The Hunger Games " on, in which a village community by lottery participants must draw lots for a gladiator fight, must survive the only one alive.