e dishes, and how she almost forgot it was the time of the year again for someone to be stoned to death! No big deal until she was the one to be stoned. Suddenly it wasn’t fair. Sadly this is the reality of humanity we just don’t care until it affects us. Rather than show up to the lottery worrying for the person about to be stoned, and trying to stop it she joked until it wasn’t so funny anymore.For me, perhaps the most disturbing characters of the story are Nancy and Bill Jr. who are smiling and laughing when they draw blank slips, even though they know that means someone else in their family is going to die. I just find the thought that any family member could laugh at the imminent death of a parent horrifying. However, this scene and the two characters involved are very symbolic of what the author views as the truly evil nature of humanity, even in all their youthful innocence, they are celebrating the death of a parent.The setting of the story helps to magnify its impact on the reader because it is set in a town similar to the one many of us grew up in, and that is symbolic of everything that we consider to be right in America. “Leave It To Beaver” could have been set in this town. The characters have names that are the same as the people who we work with and live next to. It is all very real, from “….Delacroix-the villagers pronounced this name Dellacroy,” to the men talking about planting rain and tractors.There is not a single character in the story who could not be a next-door neighbor, a teacher or a co-worker. The setting is so real that there can be no doubt in a first time readers mind the story is taking place right here in America land of the free where things like this just do not happen. This makes the shock at the end of the story that much greater. The reader is forced to deal with the fact, that all these evils, authority that is too powerful, terrible tradit...
