Max walks in about 2 minutes before class starts like clockwork. His right arm holds a few short story anthologies and a number of different papers, and his left arm holds a bottle of water. He puts everything down before smiling at the class.

“Everyone excited for the weekend? Anyone have plans?” he asks, willing to entertain people in final minutes before class starts. His German accent comes off fairly strong. The section is fairly small, about 10 people, so he wants to get an idea of who everyone is.

A minute after everyone arrives, he finally starts the section. “So, I asked you all to read ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson. We will be discussing that shortly. But I wanted to get workshops rolling, so I have this sheet…” he trails off as he looks for the sign-up sheet. He finds it and hands it to the person on the right. “You can sign up for Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, but I’d like everyone to present something of those days. We’ll have discussions about 3 people’s work on Monday and Wednesday and 4 people’s on Friday. Please don’t be shy about signing up for Monday.”

“Alright, so what did everyone think about the assigned reading? Initial thoughts? Impressions?”

Kail took a seat in the middle row center and had read the short story and felt it was a piece of crap. He had read it over several times and felt that the story had bombarded the reader with way too many characters. Even though the story yes was based in some sort of rural township of some degree and would need a lot of characters in it. None the less he would respond to his professor since it would be quite prudent to do so. The other thing was the workshops , he would have to not sign up for those. Due to his new side profession as a Guardian Knight to the Sailor Senshi. Plus his semi bodyguard duty to Valdis. But if he could take one then maybe it would be the best to balance everything that he had going on. To him Mondays would have to be the best one since it would free up the rest of the week school wise.

Kail put his name down for the Monday workshop and prayed to the kami that he would not have any of those days were there would be a youma attack. He then raised his hand and stood up "Quite frankly I found the story to be rather bad. The author of his threw way to many characters at the reader. For someone that may not be a avid reader might get confused with so many there and convolute the story. Now I understand that you would need a lot in rural township to make it feel alive. But that many characters would have been better suited for a small novel not a short story like this. Next was the ritualistic killing, the pile of stones was one thing and then the vagueness of the lottery as a ritual was a massive tip off" he said and was continuing his train of thought on the story. Since there was a lot more on his mind and was sharing his thoughts on the story.

"I did a bit of research on the author and the time surrounding her writing this which was 1948. The end of World War 2, so more then likely issues from the war were written into this. To sum up most of it, I will use the American saying. If it ain't broke don't fix it, to there approche to there tradtions and there laws. And most did not care as there mentality was that of sheep. With the thought of sheep though this story has some religious undertones to it as well. But to sum it all up with this is to question the usage of some rather old laws or practices that have no more meaning or lost them in our currant time" he said and then sat down after speaking to the professor.

As always, Max was happy to hear valid criticisms. “I understand the idea view that there is a wealth of characters that may not be as fleshed out as we wish. However, I believe creating a town can be done effectively. I would argue despite that particular flaw, it is still fairly good at eliciting some type of reaction in people, particularly on their initial read-through. It is a pretty controversial work though, and was reviewed very negatively when it came out. Praise of the work, I believe, is a more recent thing.”

"As for parallels to real life, I wonder if the story is a parallel to Shirley Jackson's life more than current events. First, she was a woman who went to college in 1940s, very rare indeed, and I doubt all together accepted. She ended up getting married, and her husband became a professor. She was often criticized for not being a good 'faculty wife' and for poor parenting as she was a little disorganized. She had eccentric interests like magic and witchcraft. So I wonder how much of her is in Ms. Hutchinson..."

The structure of classroom was bothering Max. The students should be able to all face each other for discussion… made it seem more like a conversation that students talking to him. “Hmmm… could everyone perhaps move into a circle? It feels like I am lecturing to you rather than have a discussion.”

“So any other thoughts?” Max asks as the class reshuffles themselves. The workshop signup continues making itself across the room.

The girl who speaks up next seems a little disorganized. She scrounges to find a copy of the story, pulling out tons of other pieces of scrap paper before she finds. With the number of bracelets that she has on, there is a jingling sound every time she repeats the motion. She hastily flips through her notes to find the thing she wanted to bring up.

“I actually thought the story was relatively well thought out. However, I don’t think it should be ignored that Tessie is one of the few women in the story. And the first to speak up. I’m not sure if the story is as much about people being sheep so much as it is about the denial of a voice for those not well-represented and against popular opinion. Tradition can refer just as well to the societal expectations on people. Like gender norms isn’t something we question so much as something we do. Even we try to raise children differently, they end up learning them from their peers. And I think that can be seen in how the story ends with Davy being given pebbles to toss.”

The boy who then begins talking could have been seen earlier nodding to some of Kail’s criticisms. If anyone glimpsed his notes on the reading, it seemed fairly logical at the start before devolving into something of angry ranting.

“I feel as though if Shirley Jackson wanted Tessie to be more sympathetic than she would of screamed something more than ‘It’s not fair’ when she was about to be stoned after being a willing participant so long. I mean, at no point are we more than outsiders observing a disturbing and alien phenomena. I think the story would be more effective if we were better immersed in the world, then when it took its inevitable turn, it would be shocking.”

“There is no point to a story like this if we can continue ourselves so far removed from it.”