He
was born in Odense, Denmark, in 1805. When he was 14 years old he travelled to
Copenhagen because he wanted to be a singer or an actor (but he did not
succeed). While
he was there, he met a famous theatre director names Jonas Collin. He
recognized his talent and he paid for his studies. In
1822, he attended Slagelse School. He stayed there for 3 years, and he wrote the
poem The Dying Child while he was
there. Between
1828 and 1829 he wrote his short story A
Walk from Holmen’s Canal to the East Point of the Island of Amager in
the Years 1828 and 1829,
and in 1840 he wrote his autobiography, The Adventure of my Life, 1855. In
the next 10 years he visited different countries. In
1835, he began to become famous for his children’s books, for example The Little Mermaid in 1837 and The Ugly Duckling in 1843. In
Odense there is a museum dedicated to the memory of the life and works of this
wonderful storyteller.
The
Red Shoes
The
story tells us about a little poor girl. The girl goes barefoot because she
doesn’t have any money to buy a pair of shoes. An old rich woman adopts her and
takes care of her. One day the rich old lady buys her a new pair of red shoes. An
old soldier puts a spell on them that makes them dance. She goes to church with
the red shoes, but this is highly improper. Out of the church the girl starts
dancing, and she cannot stop her feet. One day, there is a ball; the girl goes
there and her feet cannot stop dancing anymore. The woman is sick and dies; the
girl goes to the funeral with her red shoes, and she goes on dancing. She goes on
dancing along the streets and fields until she finds an executioner; she asks
him to cut her feet off. She walks with crutches, but her amputated feet go on
dancing before her. Finally, when she feels sorry for dancing in the church and
in the funeral, a beam of light takes her to heaven.
QUESTIONS
Karen
has three different pairs of shores along the story. Can you describe them? Talk
about the different characters Karen Old Mother Shoemaker The old lady The queen The old soldier The executioner What
does the mirror say to Karen? The
mirror is a very important object in a lot of stories. Do you remember another
story where there was a mirror and it had a capital role? The
first time Karen goes to the church, what does she go for? And
the second time? What
kind of shoes do people has to wear at church? Why? The
old soldier casts a magical spell to the shoes. What are the words and the
actions? Talk
about the ball. What
was the angel’s curse? What
was the girl’s sin? What
happened to Karen after she had her feet cut off? Who
helped her at last? Did
she go to the church at the end of the story? What happened?
Shirley
Jackson was born in San Francisco, California, in 1916, and spent her childhood
in Burlingame, California, when she began writing poetry and short stories as a
young teenager. Her family moved east when she was seventeen, and she attended
the University of Rochester, New York.
She
entered Syracuse University, N.Y., in 1937, where she met her future husband,
the young aspiring literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Both graduated in 1940
and moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, where Shirley wrote without fail
every day. She began having her stories published in The New Republic and The New
Yorker.
In
1945 her husband was offered a teaching position at Bennington College, and
they moved into an old house in North Bennington, Vermont, where Shirley
continued her daily writing while raising children and running the house.
Her
first novel The Road Through the Wall
was published in1948, the same year that The
New Yorker published her iconic story The
Lottery.
She
composed six novels, including The
Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, two memoirs and more than 200 short stories.
She
was a heavy smoker and suffered numerous health problems. In 1965, Shirley died
in her sleep at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48.
THE LOTTERY
It
is a short story by Shirley Jackson published in the magazine The New Yorker on June 26, 1948. Reaction
to the post from readers was negative, who sent protest messages to the magazine,
but later it was accepted as a classic short story subject to interpretations.
Now it’s considered as “one of the most famous short stories in the history of
American literature”. It has been adapted for radio, theatre and television.
Argument:
The
lottery takes place on a beautiful summer day, June 27, in a small town of 300
inhabitants, where all residents gather for a traditional annual lottery.
Although
the event seems festive at first, people show a strange and gloomy mood, and it
soon becomes clear that no one wants to win the lottery.
The
draw is carried out between the heads of the family. The Hutchinsons are chosen
and then the draw is made within the chosen family, getting chosen Tessie (the
mother), so she is stoned to death by all the neighbours of the town, including
his own family. This is a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest, according to the
beliefs of the community.
I
think that this is a story about the human capacity for violence. It explores
ideas such as communal violence, individual vulnerability and the dangers of
blindly following traditions.
We rely on collective
violence in those circumstances that we would not be able to consider
individually.
ISSUES
The
quid of the story is that the people seem normal, nice and even happy, and they
go to the square as they would go to the market, with an informal attitude,
they chatter and gossip; even the day is sunny, the children don’t have school because
they start the summer holidays and the procedures of the lottery are simple and
common. So the jewel of the story is the ending; we don’t imagine that something
horrifying is going to happen. The villagers aren’t afraid, although we suspect
that something surprising can happen, because there’s too much happiness, and
we have had some hints, e.g., they collect stones, there is somebody missing, Mrs
Hutchington says “it isn’t fair”, etc. So in this case we have a story that loses
all its effect when we know the end; the story has a punch, but as soon as we
know that it’s going to hit us at the end, we are alert and don’t get hurt (symbolically)
any more. A similar classical and very famous story of this kind is Monkey’s
Paw, by W.W. Jacobs. I strongly recommend its reading if you like these
kind of stories: it’s short and easy to read with a lot of dialogue. 👉So,
what kind of stories do you prefer: the ones with a clear ending or the ones
without?
I
think the main topic of the story is tradition, what we do with tradition.
According to the dictionary “tradition is a custom or way of behaving that has
continued for a long time in a group of people”, but, for me, another
definition is also possible: tradition is what you do because someone before
you did, not because it’s reasonable to do. So you don’t think about the action
and its consequences, you don’t think about the reason why. Accordingly,
tradition is opposite to progress.What
is your point of view about traditions? Do you remember the tradition in Julian
Barnes’s story, that one about sleeping on a mattress in a barn on the wedding
night? And I particularly remember the tradition of burying the mother’s
placenta when there is a birth (as someone in my family told me). 👉Can
you tell us a very unreasonable tradition you know?
Something
similar happens with proverbs and sayings. A typical case of a saying that can
be false is “Better the devil you know than the devil you don't”. And in the
story there is also a saying: “Lottery in June / corn be heavy soon.” 👉Are
all sayings clichés? Can you explain a saying that isn’t exactly true? I give
you some examples:
The
pen is mightier than the sword. What
doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but
words will never hurt me. You
are what you eat. A
watched pot never boils. The
grass is always greener on the other side. Time
heals all wounds. An
apple a day keeps the doctor away. Slow
and steady wins the race. You
catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Out
of sight, out of mind. Early
to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Love
is blind. You
can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.
...
In
the story, the tradition has lost some parts of the ritual, or some things have
been changed, e.g., using papers instead of pieces of wood for the draw. Do
you think that this is because traditions tend to keep the essential parts and
forget the less important ones? 👉What
is your opinion about rituals? Are they necessary for our everyday lives? And are they useful for ceremonies, social situations as a wedding or a funeral?
The
story is situated in a small village of 300 inhabitants. The
smaller the society the stronger and less sound are the traditions? 👉What
is your view on this?
Mrs
Hutchington says “it isn’t fair”. Why? Because she thinks something in the
procedure wasn’t correct, or because she knows she’s going to be stoned? 👉In
which societies they did lapidation and in which countries they're still doing now?
So
being lucky is another important theme in our narration. There’s a wonderful
story about the fortune (in the
classical or Greek sense) or the destiny ruling our lives: La
loteria en Babilonia by Jorge Luis Borges. In the Æneid, they say: Fortune
helps audacious people, that is, “chance is something you don’t have: that’s
something you must look for”. Or: you cannot wait your chance sitting down, you
have to stand up and go for it. 👉In
your opinion, do our lives depend most on luck or most on our personal
decisions?
Another
topic you can find in The Lottery is the
question of the scapegoat; that means
that, when there are catastrophes or phenomena you aren’t able to explain, you
attribute them to some sin or bad action someone has done, and so this person has to pay for it, and, if you don’t know the guilty one, you’ll have to choose
someone (using a lottery, e.g.) to pay for it. That will stop new disasters. Religion explains
this as a sacrifice: you have to do a sacrifice to soothe the gods, and that
means killing an animal or a person. You already know the legend of Saint George and
the Dragon: every year they had to choose a maiden to feed the Dragon. 👉Can
you remember other examples of scapegoats?
