Lottery Is Good Essay

Gambling may seem harmless and an easy win with money, but it is really a tax on the poor and gives false hopes. The lottery and gambling is a tax on the poor in ways that people don’t see. As well as the tax, gambling gives people false hope.

And now it becomes meaningless, and they are just blindly following the tradition that they have always done. Old Man Warner is the oldest person in the town and have been a part of the lottery for seventy-seven years. He is the only one that strongly believes that the lottery is a good thing and they should never stop doing it. Old Man Warner says, “[There] used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns.” (52) Old Man Warner talks about how the lottery correlates to the presence of more corn crops, and he strongly states that without the lottery, they would be eating chickweed and acorns. This is probably the original reason for why they started the lottery, it was to have good crops. Old Man Warner is the only one who truly cares about the lottery, the other villagers just do it to follow their tradition. Old Man Warner thinks that “nothing’s good enough for [the people who have stopped the tradition of the lottery.]” (52) He strongly opposes the idea of not having the lottery and he thinks that the people who have stopped it are out of their minds.

Lotteries weren’t always about millions of dollars. A popular author of short stories, Shirley Jackson brought light to this in her story “The Lottery”. As a reader I learn, the lottery is a ritual where a citizen of the town is chosen at random and abuse. This not only shows how society negatively influences people blindly, but at random as well. Jackson wrote this story to inform people of the way we live, and how society can change very fast without warning. By illustrating how the town turned on Tessie after she drew the wrong slip of paper, she gave a Segway to the way people think and how things are not

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the small village, at first, seems to be lovely, full of tradition, with the townspeople fulfilling their civic duties, but instead this story is bursting with contrast. The expectations that the reader has are increasingly altered. The title of this short story raises hope, for in our society the term “lottery” typically is associated with winning money or other perceived “good” things. Most people associate winning a lottery with luck, yet Jackson twists this notion around and the luck in this village is with each of the losers.

The lottery offers a wonderful opportunity to possibly win millions of dollars. While this might seems amazing, it might not be as wonderful as imagined. In fact, maybe even the opposite might true as stated by numerous studies and research done since the 1970s.

The concept of the lottery is the same throughout every state, people have money and are interested in “playing the odds”; the revenue from these people is then divided and used to benefit organizations of the state’s choice. Exactly where the money goes to is what differs from state to state. Some states put all the revenue from the lottery into one trust fund that is allocated for a more broad and generalized group. Other states target specific programs such as, preserving natural parks or assisting the educational system with additional funds. The State of Alabama does not have a lottery and its locals are the ones missing out. Due to the lack of the lottery in Alabama, those who choose to play the lottery must travel out of the state, which means their money goes to other state’s lotteries benefiting that states programs and ultimately its residents. By keeping the peoples money in the state a lottery will open an endless amount of opportunities to better state supported programs and the state as a whole.

The lottery in this country is a big past time for Americans. It gives hope to the hopeless and disappointment to a multitude of participants. A quick view of statistical information regarding the lottery shows that out of all people who take part in this country wide phenomenon, each individual person has a 1 in 175,223,510 chance of hitting the jackpot (AmericanStatisticalAssociation.org). The author of “Against The Odds and Against the Common Good”, argues that the state lotteries are “urging people to gamble”. Gloria Jimenez, of whom is the author of “Against The Odds and Against the Common Good”, creates assumptions that support her stance on her argument. Jimenez also uses the viewpoint from people who disagree with her logic, by stating various counter statements that contradict her stance. To fully understand Jimenez, we have to view the different factors of her stance on why states should not be urging people to gamble, assumptions that she makes to support her stance and countering views of people who don’t necessarily agree with her argument.

In her essay “Against the Odds, and Against the Common Good,” Gloria Jimenez asserts that states should not promote and advertize gambling. Jimenez lists many clever lottery slogans that are deceivingly interpreted. She also argues that these slogans advertise the advantages of gambling and playing the lottery because the money supposedly goes to things such as education and social service. Jimenez explains some arguments in favor of state-run lotteries, such as free participation and the creation of jobs, but argues that they are not relevant to the problem. She briefly touches on a statistic claiming that low income individuals are more likely to spend money on lottery tickets than their opposite, higher income

Gloria Jiménez wrote an essay at Tuffs University in 2003 named, “Against All Odds and Against the Common Good (Jiménez 116). The purpose of this essay is to persuade and support the following thesis: “Still, when all is said and done about lotteries bringing a vast amount of money into the lives of many people into the lives of a few, the states should not be in the business of urging people to gamble (Jiménez 116).” The evidence given in support of toward this argument does not point toward the proper thesis identified in the beginning of the essay.

Only when we are introduced to Old Man Warner, the only man in the village old enough to remember some of the traditions, do we get an idea of the purpose of the lottery. It seems to be a pagan harvest ritual, as expressed by his old saying: ??Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon?? (Jackson 369). By participating in the lottery the villages crops will prove to be bountiful. He justifies the use of the lottery simply by stating ?There?s always been a lottery? (Jackson 369).

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

While reading the story you don 't really get the impression that the lottery might actually be a bad thing until some of the people start talking about how other villages aren’t doing the lottery anymore. "’They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village they 're talking of giving up the lottery.’”,”’Some places have already quit lotteries." Mrs. Adams said.” After finishing the story, you obviously realize why they would end the tradition. But it was Old Man Warner’s response to the news that the tradition of the lottery was no longer being done in other villages, that was disturbing and further proves the dangers of following traditions blindly. “‘There 's always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly” He says this as if it’s good enough reason to continue doing it. As he’s going up to get his slip of paper, he reveals he’s been in the lottery seventy seven times. Meaning he’s participated in killing seventy seven innocent people. Again all this for the sake of following a tradition.

In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.

In life, people have a tendency to ruin a good thing while it’s going. People become overwhelmed with the joy and fulfillment and begin to react irresponsible. For instance, a great thing such as winning can result into something horrible. Winning the lottery not only can bring happiness into someone’s life, but as well cause their life to be a complete nightmare. When a person goes from being considerably poor to having millions of dollars, it impacts their lives to a great extent by causing them to become unreasonable with their winnings, quit their jobs, or just lose touch with reality. Truth is winning unthinkable amounts of money causes unimaginable stress on lives of people not accustomed to it resulting in a positive event turning

Lottery is one of the best things that has ever happened to human kind especially those that dream high and but their dreams don’t come to life because they don’t have what it takes to make it happen. Lotteries are in various categories such as sweep stakes, scratch off, the Jackpot and even the green card lottery. The lottery that is being focused in this argument is the jackpot one. When individuals or people in general buy the lottery ticket their hopes are high, and they anxiously await with anticipation hoping to win. If they don’t win, they never give up, for they know that there is always next time and they keep playing. Some people urge that playing lottery is a bad idea because people end up getting