Blog Post Report 1 Revised Madison Klump

We have read a couple stories in my English 219 class. The stories were called “The Lottery” and SlaughterHouse-Five. “The Lottery” had to do with someone getting stoned. In this story I believe that they believed that stoning someone is okay because they do it every year because they believe it will help their crops grow better. In the book SlaughterHouse-Five I believe that it has to do with the holocaust and Time-Traveling.

 “The Lottery” that was wrote in 1948 by Shirley Jackson. It was about someone getting stoned and how they believed it’s okay because it will make their crops better. The towns people in this story make it sound like it was just another day to them. The story started with “The morning of June 27^th was clear and sunny, with the warmth of a full summer day, the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Page 1). They then went on to talk about how there was a meeting in the town and how the children were finding rocks and putting them in a pile while the adults had a meeting. During the meeting they talked about how they had to draw a piece of paper from a black box. If the piece of paper had a dot on it it meant that you were the one that had to get stoned. They said that “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (Page 4). So, they also believe that if they stone someone that it will make their crops grow better. Also, when some of the towns people were talking someone said something about how some of the towns around them stopped doing the lottery because they felt it wasn’t right. But Old Man Warner snorted and said “Pack of crazy fools” (Page 4). So, he is saying that the towns that stopped having the lottery are crazy because they need to have the lottery to make the crops grow and if they stop it their crops won’t be that good that year.

SlaughterHouse-Five was wrote by Kurt Vonnegut. I believe that in SlaugherHouse-Five some of the scene that the narrator talks about have to do with the holocaust. On page 163 Bill say’s “It was a report on the behavior in Germany of American enlisted men as prisoners.” I believe this has to do with the holocaust because it talks about people being put in prisons in Germany. Another time that I believe they are talking about the holocaust is on page 73. On page 73 they say “A German was kicking his feet, telling him to wake up, that it was time to move on”. I believe that this has to do with it, because I remember when I went to the holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. they talked about how they made the people walk to a camp or walk to a train. The last one I’m going to talk about is when he says “Human beings in there took turns standing or laying down. The legs of those that were standing were like fence post driven into warm, squirming, farting, signing earth”. I believe that this quote has to do with it because when the Jews were forced into the train carts there would be no room for them to move around or sometimes even lay down.

In the book SlaughterHouse-Five the narrator talks about how Billy Pilgrim Time-Travels. I believe that he is Time-Traveling when he is going back through his memories. One time he talks about it is when he says “He had already seen a lot of their marriage, thanks to Time-Traveling, knew that it was going to be at least bearable all the way” (page 153). Here I believe that he is going back through his memories of when he got married. Because there is no way that he would know for sure that his marriage would be bearable and work out. Another time he talks about it is when he say’s “Billy was loony with Time-Traveling and morphine” (Page 157). Here I believe he is going back through his memories of when he was in the hospital getting morphine. I say that because if thus hasn’t happened yet how would he know that he would be put in a hospital and would get morphine once he is in the hospital. The last one I’m going to take about is when he said “Billy and Valencia went to sleep nested like spoons and Billy traveled in time back to the train ride that he had taken in 1944 from Maneuver in South Carolina to his father’s funeral in Ilium” (page 161). Again, he talks about riding a train to go to his Dad’s funeral.

So, in these two stories that I talked about which again were “The Lottery” and “SlaughterHouse-Five” and how they talked about it was just another day and how they believe stoning someone would make their crops grow better and how in SlaughtHouse-Five Billy had to do with Time-Traveling and what I think it means and how SlaughterHouse-Five has to do with the Holocaust.