Acquiring Personal Freedom
On a cold January day, a performance broke all barriers. The crowd erupted as the curtains opened to reveal the silhouette of a rock legend. The music initiated moves that seemed to defy explanation. Long, sensuous legs captured the audience as they moved with lightning speed while voluptuous red lips seemed to pour lyrics like a fountain. Some people were in shock about who was performing, while some mystified by how the artist seemed to control the stage. The singer was creating questions with every gyration during the unstoppable performance. No one, including me, could believe what was happening on stage.
How someone’s attitude can change over a small amount of time. When I entered high school, I was very self-conscience about what I did and how I acted. This mental approach really dampened my creative side and it kept me from doing a lot of things I find fun now. By the middle of my sophomore year, I was ready to do something that would stir things up a bit and get the big wheels turning.
Winterfest was only a week away and I, along with the rest of the school, was ready for a little break from the monotonous everyday routine. There was a competition scheduled for Thursday which was between different “air guitar” performances. I had been to a concert earlier in the year and saw Tina Turner perform one of her most famous songs, “Proud Mary.” To my mind, the idea of dressing like Tina Turner and performing on stage was absurd. I thought about it for a few days and decided that this could be something that might break the self-conscience chains holding my spirit down. I knew it would be hard and some people might think it a little overboard, but there was only one way to fin...
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...ual attire rather than the leather mini-skirt. A glint in my eye seemed to light the way out of the dim-lit bathroom.
Today, when confronted with a challenge, I just look back at this experience to help me through it. After I performed in front of the school in a skirt and high heels, some things seem minuscule. By overpowering my self-conscience feelings, I am now able to do things without caring how people might view me. I have noticed that my newly gained social confidence helps me through everything from interviews to relationships.
On a cold January day, a performance broke all barriers blocking me from my goals. I did something I had never done and discovered that what others thought would not control my life any longer. On that day, my spirit escaped the bounding chains and set my big wheels in motion with no sign of stopping anytime soon.
Shields, Patrick J. "Arbitrary Condimnation And Sanctioned Violence In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"." Contemporary Justice Review 7.4 (2004): 411-419.
Crawford, Nick. “Learning from ‘The Lottery’: How Jackson’s Story Might Help Us Rethink Tradition.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 877-80. Print.
In summary, Laurence’s article sanctioning ketamine as a cure for depression is an interesting and well-written article, however, it could give people the wrong idea about ketamine. There is a rapidly increasing interest in the discovery of drugs targeting glutamate neurotransmitter in the brain, as a hope to rapidly treat treatment-resistant patients (Duman & Ronald, 2013). While the mentioned studies in the article and this essay have given insight into ketamine’s antidepressant effects, this is still something that needs to be researched further as a lot of unresolved problems are still around with ketamine. Furthermore, the potential side effects of ketamine, including bladder and kidney damage, hepatotoxicity and psychological effects still require extreme consideration.
Daschle, Tom, Scott S. Greenberger, and Jeanne M. Lambrew. Critical: what we can do about the health-care crisis. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008. Print.
Why would a civilized and peaceful town would ever suggest the horrifying acts of violence can take place anywhere at anytime and the most ordinary people can commit them. Jackson's fiction is noted for exploring incongruities in everyday life, and “The Lottery”, perhaps her most exemplary work in this respect, examines humanity's capacity for evil within a contemporary, familiar, American setting. Noting that the story’s characters, physical environment, and even its climactic action lacks significant individuating detail, most critics view “The Lottery.” As a modern-day parable or fable, which obliquely addresses a variety of themes, including the dark side of human nature, the danger of ritualized behavior, and the potential for cruelty when the individual submits to the mass will. Shirley Jackson also addresses cruelty by the citizen’s refusal to stand up and oppose “The Lottery.” Violence and cruelty is a major theme in “The Lottery.”
Shirley Jackson wrote many books in her life, but she was well known by people for her story “The Lottery” (Hicks). “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948, in the New Yorker magazine (Schilb). The story sets in the morning of June 27th in a small town. The townspeople gather in the square to conduct their annual tradition, the Lottery. The winner of the lottery will stoned to death by the society. Although there is no main character in the story, the story develops within other important elements. There are some important elements of the story that develop the theme of the story: narrator and its point of view, symbolism, and main conflict. The story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, argues practicing a tradition without understanding the meaning of the practice is meaningless and dangerous.
Approximately 5% of the United States' population experiences a depressive episode that requires psychopharmacological treatment; in any one year, 10-12 million Americans are affected by depression, with the condition twice as common in females than in males. It has been estimated that 15% of patients hospitalized for depression will commit suicide. These figures are incredible, so finding the root of the problem when it comes to depression is extremely important. "Alterations in serotonin metabolism may be an important factor in the etiology and treatment of depression." (7).
The Market Revolution caused tremendous changes in the way Americans live and interact with one another and the environment. Although the Market Revolution had copious extraordinary effects on Americans' life and culture that continues to influence, it also had numerous deleterious effects on the society. In Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, he condescended the changes in the market because it changed the way people lived. Thoreau believed that the Market Revolution suppressed people’s enjoyment of freedom and instead of savoring the simple things in life, people chase after materialistic goods and thus incapable of enjoying life.
Klein, E. (2014). A health industry expert on ‘the fundamental problem with Obamacare.’ The Washington Post. Retrieved on 2/8/14 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/09/a-health-industry-expert-on-the-fundamental-problem-with-obamacare
Set in 1948 and published in The New Yorker, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson describes a village ritual of sacrifice. Contrary to the positive feeling associated with the word “lottery,” the story strikes fear into the readers’ hearts as the winner is stoned to death. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” uses symbolism and genre conventions of a classic dystopian story to show the different ways in which human cruelty can occur.
Peterson, Mark A. "It Was A Different Time: Obama And The Unique Opportunity For Health Care Reform." Journal Of Health Politics, Policy & Law 36.3 (2011): 429-436.Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
In “The Lottery”, Jackson wrote about a special tradition of a small village. June 27th was warm and sunny, and it gave the impression like nothing could possibly go wrong. Everyone knows the lottery as an exciting thing, and everybody wants to win, but this lottery is unlike any other. This lottery was actually the tradition of stoning of an innocent villager; that year it was Tessie Hutchinson. Though the horrific ending was not expected, throughout the story Jackson gave subtle hints that this was not an average lottery. Jackson foreshadowed the death of Tessie Hutchinson with stones, the black box, and the three legged stool; she showed that unquestioning support of tradition can be fatal.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner. Boston: New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2013. 242-249. Print.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 989.
What thoughts come to mind when you think of "The Lottery?" Positive thoughts including money, a new home, excitement, and happiness are all associated with the lottery in most cases. However, this is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s short story, "The Lottery." Here, the characters in the story are not gambling for money, instead they are gambling for their life. A shock that surprises the reader as she unveils this horrifying tradition in the village on this beautiful summer day. This gamble for their life is a result of tradition, a tradition that is cruel and inhumane, yet upheld in this town. Shirley Jackson provides the reader’s with a graphic description of violence, cruelty, and inhumane treatment which leads to the unexpected meaning of "The Lottery." Born in San Francisco, Jackson began writing early in her life. She won a poetry prize at age twelve and continued writing through high school. In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. After marriage to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a notable literary critic, she continued to write. Her first national publication “My Life with R.H. Macy” was published in The New Republic in 1941but her best-known work is “The Lottery.”(Lit Links or Reagan). Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to portray a story with rising action that surprises the reader with the unexpected odd ritual in the village. While one would expect “The Lottery” to be a positive event, the reader’s are surprised with a ritual that has been around for seventy-seven years , demonstrating how unwilling people are to make changes in their everyday life despite the unjust and cruel treatment that is associated with this tradi...