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LITERARY GAMES
A Stone’s Throw Away
Have we all won the lottery?
After solving today’s Wordle, my mind kept returning to a story that I read in high school. The story in question is Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, so if you haven’t read that, or solved today’s Wordle then you might want to stop reading.
I first read The Lottery in high school, and I remember thinking at the time that it was interesting. I’m sure that in my adolescent mind, the themes of mob mentality and blind tradition probably took a back seat to the brutal murder at the end. But I am glad that I read it, and I have been able to relate that story to different ideas as I have grown into an adult. Questioning blind allegiance, working against mob mentality, and my views on capital punishment are all shaped by things I’ve learned and this story is part of what I’ve learned.
I know it’s a theme that I’ve written about several times, but today’s Wordle makes me reflect what a different person I would have been if I had not been exposed to different ideas, stories, and people as I was growing up. I would not have been inspired to travel to foreign countries, visit restaurants where I couldn’t understand everything on the menu, or sit and have a conversation with someone that I didn’t know. I feel that I am a better person today because I was allowed to read…
