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Sharia Law In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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Interpretation Essay “’It isn't fair,’ she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head,” (para. 78). This is not the expected reaction from a person who just won the lottery. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a story about a towns choosing of a sacrifice to the gods. A man of each family draws a slip of paper from the box, and one man will hold a paper with a dot of coal. All members of this man’s family will draw their own slips of paper. The family member that draws the last white paper marked with coal is then stoned by the town in sacrifice to the gods. There is an unmistakable parallel between Sharia Law and the lottery in the treatment of women, the way they both are slowly going out of style, and both give decisions the ability to take away human lives. In The Lottery there was an unmistakable prejudice against women. During the drawing only the man, the head of house hold, is allowed to draw for his family. In the story Mrs. Graves has to draw in representation of her family. Her husband had a broken leg and was unable to attend the lottery. You can sense the disapproval in the story when Mrs. Graves stated that her son was to young to draw. “’Wife draws for her husband.’ Mr. Summers said. ‘Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?’” (para. 12). Mr. Summers suggests that Mrs. …show more content…

It is stated that a woman can have one husband, but a man can have four wives. If a woman stays at home all day cooking, cleaning, and pleasing ONE wife should be more than satisfactory for a man. The Lottery may not contain any polygamists, but the man is set on a pedestal. He has the right to choose his family’s outcome. When the men draw from the box, they are deciding the families fate. If a man chooses another wife, he is deciding the life of polygamy for the rest of his family. The woman has no choice of whether or not she wants to share her husband with another woman for the rest of her

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