The Lottery

"The Lottery" is a story that I wouldn't read again if I had a choice. When I read the story the first time, the excitement of the drawing and the gathering of the townspeople misled me to believe that something good was going to happen, money or a brand new wagon perhaps? But is the excitement in the near miss of death or is it the relief to get on with your life for one more year after you survive this drawing? I don't get it I guess. When I painfully read the story the second time, I saw the symbolism of the black box (death), Mr. Graves name, etc. I found a bit of irony in the quote "...but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box" (Jackson, 406). How is it that the population will keep growing when you are killing someone off every year, and why on earth would you move to town that exercised this particular type of ritual, when later in the story it tells of other towns doing away with "the lottery"? This was definitely a morbid tale.