Comparison between the lottery and what a thought The stories I chose were "The Lottery" and "What a Thought" by Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is considered a morbid writer because she writes her stories with the intent to shock her readers into seeing the truth behind human nature. His work deals with an evil presence in everyday life. “The Lottery” is a chilling tale of an everyday town and its annual lottery. It shows how cruel a city can be in protecting its traditions and rituals and how not even friendship matters. The second, found in a collection of 50 short stories unearthed after Jackson's death, shows how quickly a wife of many years can turn against her husband without warning. Both stories contained strong images and foreshadowed events leading up to the climax. "The Lottery" was written shortly after World War II, however it is unknown when Jackson wrote "What A Thought". “The Lottery” and “What A Thought” follow Shirley Jackson’s usual pattern of shock value. Both stories show how quickly, regardless of the time period in which people coincided and bonded together, one can become attached to the other. “The Lottery” showed how an everyday small town is willing to do anything to maintain its traditional values. The city believed it had to make a human sacrifice to the land to have good harvests. Therefore every year a lottery was organized to find out who would be sacrificed. In the story "What a Thought" a husband who would do absolutely anything to keep his wife happy was brutally murdered just because his wife felt that way that day. These are things that tie... to the center of the card ......mmer is associated with life, not death. In "What A Thought" the husband is almost perfect. Who would ever want to kill the perfect husband? Just moments before those terrible thoughts, the wife felt proud for her husband who never did things like sleep after dinner like most men do. How her husband would do anything for her and yet, without wanting to kill him, she had the desire to do so. Shirley Jackson can certainly prove a point. It uses great foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism shown in both of these stories. His style is unique compared to other writers but does not differ much from his own writings. “The Lottery” and “What A Thought” were great selections to choose because they held great meaning behind the dark storylines. I look forward to reading more of his work and researching his character.