#3

“Static”

Static: Variation #1

Could it be I am the flower unpicked, left to grow, left to be the background and setting for another’s

story? Could it be that to give me this life unexamined, I now know Socrates too well?

Cover pictures from private collection, 2012, Alaska,

taken by EDM

Agenda: Given classes are 90 minutes in length, and Lord of the Flies is the main read, students

are expected to follow the schedule as laid out in ISSUU #2. Each class will include 60 minutes

of Read time and Note taking time/discussion based on items in the second ISSUU. The

remaining 30 minutes will include items from ISSUU #3. The full stories are included in this

edition and includes supplemental material to assist in the overall understanding of the setting,

the characters, and the theme in conjunction with:

Goldings’ The Lord of the Flies

London’s “To Build a Fire”

Connell’s “The Most

Dangerous Game”

Jackson’s “The Lottery”

Static, Variation #2

It’s just like me to write this script, to think these thoughts I keep tight lipped.

It’s just like me to plot the line, to follow rules without a mind.

It’s just like me to be unresolved, to reappear so unevolved.

It’s just like me to fade away, to live a life with unfinished day.

It’s just like me to be tried and true, to blacken, to whiten, to be one hue.

It’s just like me to be one dimension, sans ambition, in suspension.

For change is not my reason to be; for growth will never undefined me.

Even so, there is an unwritten desire that I do not know,

Even so, there is an author’s pen that can break this suspense,

An unimagined sequel sometime hence, that no one has yet read in me

One that will break these chains of archetypy.

EDM September 2015

Introduction:

The elements of narration is often where conversations start and stop in the English classroom. Knowing what

happened culminates into a conversation on plot, neatly pinned to a plot diagram. Some discussion ensues as to

where the climax really is in this piece or that, but for the most part identifying the elements of plot is one that

demands little more than an understanding of its parts: the exposition, the rising action, the climax, the falling action

and resolution or the denouement.

Setting often abruptly stops at the mention of what the time of the piece is as well as the ability to pinpoint a locale.

Characters neatly divide themselves into the protagonist (the main character) and the antagonist (the opposing

force), with a sometimes mention of words like “foil”. If ambitious, the class discussion may distinguish between

round (aka dynamic) characters vs. flat ones (aka static).

Theme is quickly discovered, and if anything deep occurs, there is a brief discussion of message, especially in terms

of how the plot and/or setting created a situation for the character.

From time to time, a literary device is brought up, again in the mode of being able to identify it as a literary device.

What if….everything led to the message, however. What if the setting supplied nuanced texture to assist in

understanding the overall meaning of what the author was attempting to say. What if the plot and the characters

were pawns to the overarching message? What if the literary devices, the structure itself attempted to find a

Universal Theme and say something profound about that theme. What lessons would be embedded in every story if

we all read them with this in mind?

Considering this concept can assist greatly in creating writings which specifically aim to compare and contrast

pieces of literature. Considering the Universal Themes and messages inherent, albeit under the surface of the

elements of narration, suggests that the act of reading is the very act of discovery.

Consider the characters being presented in these three pieces. Are they static? If so, and if the static characters are

the ones that do not change, then does that suggest that we can learn universal truth from not that which changes, but

from that which stays the same?

“Static” Variation #3

Overexposed, underunderstood.

Like a too bright sun that wishes to warm the world, but is scorned for its scorching.

ARCHETYPES Is it possible that like-featured characters possess like-featured messages? If you buy into this concept, then the

archetype should be quite easy to digest.

It is worth asking this fundamental question, however:

“Is it possible to have an archetype and a dynamic character?”

Consider how telling the charts on the following pages are:

Quick Write:

Think of examples of each of these

archetypes in what you’ve read or

seen. Are they essentially the same

character with little to no variation?

Or is there diversity?

To Build a Fire By: Jack London

First published in The Century Magazine, v.76, August 1908

“To Build A Fire”

by Jack London Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when the man turned aside from the

main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth- bank, where a dim and little-travelled trail led

eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the

top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was no sun nor

hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an

intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to

the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man. He was used to the lack of sun. It had been

days since he had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass before that cheerful

orb, due south, would just peep above the sky- line and dip immediately from view.

The man flung a look back along the way he had come. The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under

three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure white, rolling in gentle

undulations where the ice-jams of the freeze-up had formed. North and south, as far as his eye

could see, it was unbroken white, save for a dark hair-line that curved and twisted from around the

spruce- covered island to the south, and that curved and twisted away into the north, where it

disappeared behind another spruce-covered island. This dark hair-line was the trail--the main trail--

that led south five hundred miles to the Chilcoot Pass, Dyea, and salt water; and that led north

seventy miles to Dawson, and still on to the north a thousand miles to Nulato, and finally to St.

Michael on Bering Sea, a thousand miles and half a thousand more.

But all this--the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the

tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all--made no impression on the man. It

was not because he was long used to it. He was a new-comer in the land, a chechaquo, and this

was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and

alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below

zero meant eighty odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable,

and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and

upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and

from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the

universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded

against by the use of mittens, ear-flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero

was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than

that was a thought that never entered his head.

As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him.

He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew

that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly

it was colder than fifty below--how much colder he did not know. But the temperature did not

matter. He was bound for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were

already. They had come over across the divide from the Indian Creek country, while he had come

the roundabout way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out logs in the spring from the

islands in the Yukon. He would be in to camp by six o'clock; a bit after dark, it was true, but the

boys would be there, a fire would be going, and a hot supper would be ready. As for lunch, he

pressed his hand against the protruding bundle under his jacket. It was also under his shirt,

wrapped up in a handkerchief and lying against the naked skin. It was the only way to keep the

biscuits from freezing. He smiled agreeably to himself as he thought of those biscuits, each cut open

and sopped in bacon grease, and each enclosing a generous slice of fried bacon.

He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail was faint. A foot of snow had fallen since the

last sled had passed over, and he was glad he was without a sled, travelling light. In fact, he carried

nothing but the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the cold. It

certainly was cold, he concluded, as he rubbed his numbed nose and cheek-bones with his mittened

hand. He was a warm-whiskered man, but the hair on his face did not protect the high cheek-bones

and the eager nose that thrust itself aggressively into the frosty air.

At the man's heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf-dog, grey-coated and without

any visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was depressed

by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for travelling. Its instinct told it a truer tale

than was told to the man by the man's judgment. In reality, it was not merely colder than fifty

below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero.

Since the freezing-point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of

frost obtained. The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was

no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute had

its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink

along at the man's heels, and that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man

as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had

learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snow and cuddle its warmth away from

the air.

The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and especially

were its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened by its crystalled breath. The man's red beard and

moustache were likewise frosted, but more solidly, the deposit taking the form of ice and increasing

with every warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, the man was chewing tobacco, and the muzzle of

ice held his lips so rigidly that he was unable to clear his chin when he expelled the juice. The result

was that a crystal beard of the colour and solidity of amber was increasing its length on his chin. If

he fell down it would shatter itself, like glass, into brittle fragments. But he did not mind the

appendage. It was the penalty all tobacco- chewers paid in that country, and he had been out

before in two cold snaps. They had not been so cold as this, he knew, but by the spirit thermometer

at Sixty Mile he knew they had been registered at fifty below and at fifty-five.

He held on through the level stretch of woods for several miles, crossed a wide flat of plants, and

dropped down a bank to the frozen bed of a small stream. This was Henderson Creek, and he knew

he was ten miles from the forks. He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. He was making four

miles an hour, and he calculated that he would arrive at the forks at half-past twelve. He decided to

celebrate that event by eating his lunch there.

The dog dropped in again at his heels, with a tail drooping discouragement, as the man swung along

the creek-bed. The furrow of the old sled-trail was plainly visible, but a dozen inches of snow

covered the marks of the last runners. In a month no man had come up or down that silent creek.

The man held steadily on. He was not much given to thinking, and just then particularly he had

nothing to think about save that he would eat lunch at the forks and that at six o'clock he would be

in camp with the boys. There was nobody to talk to and, had there been, speech would have been

impossible because of the ice-muzzle on his mouth. So he continued monotonously to chew tobacco

and to increase the length of his amber beard.

Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was very cold and that he had never experienced

such cold. As he walked along he rubbed his cheek-bones and nose with the back of his mittened

hand. He did this automatically, now and again changing hands. But rub as he would, the instant he

stopped his cheek-bones went numb, and the following instant the end of his nose went numb. He

was sure to frost his cheeks; he knew that, and experienced a pang of regret that he had not

devised a nose-strap of the sort Bud wore in cold snaps. Such a strap passed across the cheeks, as

well, and saved them. But it didn't matter much, after all. What were frosted cheeks? A bit painful,

that was all; they were never serious.

Empty as the man's mind was of thoughts, he was keenly observant, and he noticed the changes in

the creek, the curves and bends and timber- jams, and always he sharply noted where he placed his

feet. Once, coming around a bend, he shied abruptly, like a startled horse, curved away from the

place where he had been walking, and retreated several paces back along the trail. The creek he

knew was frozen clear to the bottom--no creek could contain water in that arctic winter--but he

knew also that there were springs that bubbled out from the hillsides and ran along under the snow

and on top the ice of the creek. He knew that the coldest snaps never froze these springs, and he

knew likewise their danger. They were traps. They hid pools of water under the snow that might be

three inches deep, or three feet. Sometimes a skin of ice half an inch thick covered them, and in

turn was covered by the snow. Sometimes there were alternate layers of water and ice-skin, so that

when one broke through he kept on breaking through for a while, sometimes wetting himself to the

waist.

That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt the give under his feet and heard the crackle

of a snow-hidden ice-skin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger.

At the very least it meant delay, for he would be forced to stop and build a fire, and under its

protection to bare his feet while he dried his socks and moccasins. He stood and studied the creek-

bed and its banks, and decided that the flow of water came from the right. He reflected awhile,

rubbing his nose and cheeks, then skirted to the left, stepping gingerly and testing the footing for

each step. Once clear of the danger, he took a fresh chew of tobacco and swung along at his four-

mile gait.

In the course of the next two hours he came upon several similar traps. Usually the snow above the

hidden pools had a sunken, candied appearance that advertised the danger. Once again, however,

he had a close call; and once, suspecting danger, he compelled the dog to go on in front. The dog

did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and then it went quickly across

the white, unbroken surface. Suddenly it broke through, floundered to one side, and got away to

firmer footing. It had wet its forefeet and legs, and almost immediately the water that clung to it

turned to ice. It made quick efforts to lick the ice off its legs, then dropped down in the snow and

began to bite out the ice that had formed between the toes. This was a matter of instinct. To permit

the ice to remain would mean sore feet. It did not know this. It merely obeyed the mysterious

prompting that arose from the deep crypts of its being. But the man knew, having achieved a

judgment on the subject, and he removed the mitten from his right hand and helped tear out the

ice- particles. He did not expose his fingers more than a minute, and was astonished at the swift

numbness that smote them. It certainly was cold. He pulled on the mitten hastily, and beat the

hand savagely across his chest.

At twelve o'clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sun was too far south on its winter journey to

clear the horizon. The bulge of the earth intervened between it and Henderson Creek, where the

man walked under a clear sky at noon and cast no shadow. At half-past twelve, to the minute, he

arrived at the forks of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had made. If he kept it up, he

would certainly be with the boys by six. He unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and drew forth his lunch.

The action consumed no more than a quarter of a minute, yet in that brief moment the numbness

laid hold of the exposed fingers. He did not put the mitten on, but, instead, struck the fingers a

dozen sharp smashes against his leg. Then he sat down on a snow-covered log to eat. The sting

that followed upon the striking of his fingers against his leg ceased so quickly that he was startled,

he had had no chance to take a bite of biscuit. He struck the fingers repeatedly and returned them

to the mitten, baring the other hand for the purpose of eating. He tried to take a mouthful, but the

ice-muzzle prevented. He had forgotten to build a fire and thaw out. He chuckled at his foolishness,

and as he chuckled he noted the numbness creeping into the exposed fingers. Also, he noted that

the stinging which had first come to his toes when he sat down was already passing away. He

wondered whether the toes were warm or numbed. He moved them inside the moccasins and

decided that they were numbed.

He pulled the mitten on hurriedly and stood up. He was a bit frightened. He stamped up and down

until the stinging returned into the feet. It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from

Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country. And he

had laughed at him at the time! That showed one must not be too sure of things. There was no

mistake about it, it was cold. He strode up and down, stamping his feet and threshing his arms,

until reassured by the returning warmth. Then he got out matches and proceeded to make a fire.

From the undergrowth, where high water of the previous spring had lodged a supply of seasoned

twigs, he got his firewood. Working carefully from a small beginning, he soon had a roaring fire,

over which he thawed the ice from his face and in the protection of which he ate his biscuits. For the

moment the cold of space was outwitted. The dog took satisfaction in the fire, stretching out close

enough for warmth and far enough away to escape being singed.

When the man had finished, he filled his pipe and took his comfortable time over a smoke. Then he

pulled on his mittens, settled the ear-flaps of his cap firmly about his ears, and took the creek trail

up the left fork. The dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the fire. This man did not know

cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one

hundred and seven degrees below freezing-point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it

had inherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold. It

was the time to lie snug in a hole in the snow and wait for a curtain of cloud to be drawn across the

face of outer space whence this cold came. On the other hand, there was keen intimacy between

the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had ever

received were the caresses of the whip- lash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that

threatened the whip-lash. So the dog made no effort to communicate its apprehension to the man.

It was not concerned in the welfare of the man; it was for its own sake that it yearned back toward

the fire. But the man whistled, and spoke to it with the sound of whip-lashes, and the dog swung in

at the man's heels and followed after.

The man took a chew of tobacco and proceeded to start a new amber beard. Also, his moist breath

quickly powdered with white his moustache, eyebrows, and lashes. There did not seem to be so

many springs on the left fork of the Henderson, and for half an hour the man saw no signs of any.

And then it happened. At a place where there were no signs, where the soft, unbroken snow

seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through. It was not deep. He wetted himself

half-way to the knees before he floundered out to the firm crust.

He was angry, and cursed his luck aloud. He had hoped to get into camp with the boys at six

o'clock, and this would delay him an hour, for he would have to build a fire and dry out his foot-

gear. This was imperative at that low temperature--he knew that much; and he turned aside to the

bank, which he climbed. On top, tangled in the underbrush about the trunks of several small spruce

trees, was a high-water deposit of dry firewood--sticks and twigs principally, but also larger portions

of seasoned branches and fine, dry, last-year's grasses. He threw down several large pieces on top

of the snow. This served for a foundation and prevented the young flame from drowning itself in the

snow it otherwise would melt. The flame he got by touching a match to a small shred of birch-bark

that he took from his pocket. This burned even more readily than paper. Placing it on the

foundation, he fed the young flame with wisps of dry grass and with the tiniest dry twigs.

He worked slowly and carefully, keenly aware of his danger. Gradually, as the flame grew stronger,

he increased the size of the twigs with which he fed it. He squatted in the snow, pulling the twigs

out from their entanglement in the brush and feeding directly to the flame. He knew there must be

no failure. When it is seventy- five below zero, a man must not fail in his first attempt to build a

fire--that is, if his feet are wet. If his feet are dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail for half a

mile and restore his circulation. But the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by

running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freeze the

harder.

All this the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had told him about it the previous fall, and

now he was appreciating the advice. Already all sensation had gone out of his feet. To build the fire

he had been forced to remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of four

miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and to all the extremities.

But the instant he stopped, the action of the pump eased down. The cold of space smote the

unprotected tip of the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the

blow. The blood of his body recoiled before it. The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it

wanted to hide away and cover itself up from the fearful cold. So long as he walked four miles an

hour, he pumped that blood, willy-nilly, to the surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down into

the recesses of his body. The extremities were the first to feel its absence. His wet feet froze the

faster, and his exposed fingers numbed the faster, though they had not yet begun to freeze. Nose

and cheeks were already freezing, while the skin of all his body chilled as it lost its blood.

But he was safe. Toes and nose and cheeks would be only touched by the frost, for the fire was

beginning to burn with strength. He was feeding it with twigs the size of his finger. In another

minute he would be able to feed it with branches the size of his wrist, and then he could remove his

wet foot-gear, and, while it dried, he could keep his naked feet warm by the fire, rubbing them at

first, of course, with snow. The fire was a success. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the

old-timer on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law

that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had the

accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of

them, he thought. All a man had to do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man who

was a man could travel alone. But it was surprising, the rapidity with which his cheeks and nose

were freezing. And he had not thought his fingers could go lifeless in so short a time. Lifeless they

were, for he could scarcely make them move together to grip a twig, and they seemed remote from

his body and from him. When he touched a twig, he had to look and see whether or not he had hold

of it. The wires were pretty well down between him and his finger-ends.

All of which counted for little. There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with

every dancing flame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated with ice; the thick

German socks were like sheaths of iron half-way to the knees; and the mocassin strings were like

rods of steel all twisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment he tugged with his

numbed fingers, then, realizing the folly of it, he drew his sheath-knife.

But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He

should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had

been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under

which he had done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blown for weeks, and

each bough was fully freighted. Each time he had pulled a twig he had communicated a slight

agitation to the tree--an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation

sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This

fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreading out and involving the

whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire,

and the fire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow.

The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his own sentence of death. For a

moment he sat and stared at the spot where the fire had been. Then he grew very calm. Perhaps

the old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right. If he had only had a trail-mate he would have been in no

danger now. The trail-mate could have built the fire. Well, it was up to him to build the fire over

again, and this second time there must be no failure. Even if he succeeded, he would most likely

lose some toes. His feet must be badly frozen by now, and there would be some time before the

second fire was ready.

Such were his thoughts, but he did not sit and think them. He was busy all the time they were

passing through his mind, he made a new foundation for a fire, this time in the open; where no

treacherous tree could blot it out. Next, he gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs from the high-water

flotsam. He could not bring his fingers together to pull them out, but he was able to gather them by

the handful. In this way he got many rotten twigs and bits of green moss that were undesirable, but

it was the best he could do. He worked methodically, even collecting an armful of the larger

branches to be used later when the fire gathered strength. And all the while the dog sat and

watched him, a certain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked upon him as the fire-provider,

and the fire was slow in coming.

When all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for a second piece of birch-bark. He knew the

bark was there, and, though he could not feel it with his fingers, he could hear its crisp rustling as

he fumbled for it. Try as he would, he could not clutch hold of it. And all the time, in his

consciousness, was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing. This thought tended to

put him in a panic, but he fought against it and kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth,

and threshed his arms back and forth, beating his hands with all his might against his sides. He did

this sitting down, and he stood up to do it; and all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolf-brush

of a tail curled around warmly over its forefeet, its sharp wolf-ears pricked forward intently as it

watched the man. And the man as he beat and threshed with his arms and hands, felt a great surge

of envy as he regarded the creature that was warm and secure in its natural covering.

After a time he was aware of the first far-away signals of sensation in his beaten fingers. The faint

tingling grew stronger till it evolved into a stinging ache that was excruciating, but which the man

hailed with satisfaction. He stripped the mitten from his right hand and fetched forth the birch-bark.

The exposed fingers were quickly going numb again. Next he brought out his bunch of sulphur

matches. But the tremendous cold had already driven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to

separate one match from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He tried to pick it out of the

snow, but failed. The dead fingers could neither touch nor clutch. He was very careful. He drove the

thought of his freezing feet; and nose, and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his whole soul to the

matches. He watched, using the sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when he saw his

fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them--that is, he willed to close them, for the wires were

drawn, and the fingers did not obey. He pulled the mitten on the right hand, and beat it fiercely

against his knee. Then, with both mittened hands, he scooped the bunch of matches, along with

much snow, into his lap. Yet he was no better off.

After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between the heels of his mittened hands. In

this fashion he carried it to his mouth. The ice crackled and snapped when by a violent effort he

opened his mouth. He drew the lower jaw in, curled the upper lip out of the way, and scraped the

bunch with his upper teeth in order to separate a match. He succeeded in getting one, which he

dropped on his lap. He was no better off. He could not pick it up. Then he devised a way. He picked

it up in his teeth and scratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched before he succeeded in

lighting it. As it flamed he held it with his teeth to the birch-bark. But the burning brimstone went

up his nostrils and into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically. The match fell into the snow

and went out.

The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that

ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner. He beat his hands, but failed in

exciting any sensation. Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth. He

caught the whole bunch between the heels of his hands. His arm-muscles not being frozen enabled

him to press the hand-heels tightly against the matches. Then he scratched the bunch along his leg.

It flared into flame, seventy sulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. He kept

his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and held the blazing bunch to the birch-bark.

As he so held it, he became aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh was burning. He could smell it.

Deep down below the surface he could feel it. The sensation developed into pain that grew acute.

And still he endured it, holding the flame of the matches clumsily to the bark that would not light

readily because his own burning hands were in the way, absorbing most of the flame.

At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his hands apart. The blazing matches fell sizzling

into the snow, but the birch-bark was alight. He began laying dry grasses and the tiniest twigs on

the flame. He could not pick and choose, for he had to lift the fuel between the heels of his hands.

Small pieces of rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he bit them off as well as he

could with his teeth. He cherished the flame carefully and awkwardly. It meant life, and it must not

perish. The withdrawal of blood from the surface of his body now made him begin to shiver, and he

grew more awkward. A large piece of green moss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it

out with his fingers, but his shivering frame made him poke too far, and he disrupted the nucleus of

the little fire, the burning grasses and tiny twigs separating and scattering. He tried to poke them

together again, but in spite of the tenseness of the effort, his shivering got away with him, and the

twigs were hopelessly scattered. Each twig gushed a puff of smoke and went out. The fire-provider

had failed. As he looked apathetically about him, his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the

ruins of the fire from him, in the snow, making restless, hunching movements, slightly lifting one

forefoot and then the other, shifting its weight back and forth on them with wistful eagerness.

The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of the man, caught in a

blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. He would kill the dog

and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build

another fire. He spoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was a strange note of fear that

frightened the animal, who had never known the man to speak in such way before. Something was

the matter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger,--it knew not what danger but somewhere,

somehow, in its brain arose an apprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the sound of

the man's voice, and its restless, hunching movements and the liftings and shiftings of its forefeet

became more pronounced but it would not come to the man. He got on his hands and knees and

crawled toward the dog. This unusual posture again excited suspicion, and the animal sidled

mincingly away.

The man sat up in the snow for a moment and struggled for calmness. Then he pulled on his

mittens, by means of his teeth, and got upon his feet. He glanced down at first in order to assure

himself that he was really standing up, for the absence of sensation in his feet left him unrelated to

the earth. His erect position in itself started to drive the webs of suspicion from the dog's mind; and

when he spoke peremptorily, with the sound of whip-lashes in his voice, the dog rendered its

customary allegiance and came to him. As it came within reaching distance, the man lost his

control. His arms flashed out to the dog, and he experienced genuine surprise when he discovered

that his hands could not clutch, that there was neither bend nor feeling in the lingers. He had

forgotten for the moment that they were frozen and that they were freezing more and more. All this

happened quickly, and before the animal could get away, he encircled its body with his arms. He sat

down in the snow, and in this fashion held the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled.

But it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in his arms and sit there. He realized that he could

not kill the dog. There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands he could neither draw nor hold

his sheath-knife nor throttle the animal. He released it, and it plunged wildly away, with tail

between its legs, and still snarling. It halted forty feet away and surveyed him curiously, with ears

sharply pricked forward. The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found them

hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in

order to find out where his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the

mittened hands against his sides. He did this for five minutes, violently, and his heart pumped

enough blood up to the surface to put a stop to his shivering. But no sensation was aroused in the

hands. He had an impression that they hung like weights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried

to run the impression down, he could not find it.

A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he

realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands

and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him. This threw him

into a panic, and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail. The dog joined in

behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear such as he had never known

in his life. Slowly, as he ploughed and floundered through the snow, he began to see things again--

the banks of the creek, the old timber-jams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. The running made

him feel better. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet would thaw out; and, anyway, if he

ran far enough, he would reach camp and the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and

toes and some of his face; but the boys would take care of him, and save the rest of him when he

got there. And at the same time there was another thought in his mind that said he would never get

to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away, that the freezing had too great a start

on him, and that he would soon be stiff and dead. This thought he kept in the background and

refused to consider. Sometimes it pushed itself forward and demanded to be heard, but he thrust it

back and strove to think of other things.

It struck him as curious that he could run at all on feet so frozen that he could not feel them when

they struck the earth and took the weight of his body. He seemed to himself to skim along above

the surface and to have no connection with the earth. Somewhere he had once seen a winged

Mercury, and he wondered if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth.

His theory of running until he reached camp and the boys had one flaw in it: he lacked the

endurance. Several times he stumbled, and finally he tottered, crumpled up, and fell. When he tried

to rise, he failed. He must sit and rest, he decided, and next time he would merely walk and keep

on going. As he sat and regained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm and

comfortable. He was not shivering, and it even seemed that a warm glow had come to his chest and

trunk. And yet, when he touched his nose or cheeks, there was no sensation. Running would not

thaw them out. Nor would it thaw out his hands and feet. Then the thought came to him that the

frozen portions of his body must be extending. He tried to keep this thought down, to forget it, to

think of something else; he was aware of the panicky feeling that it caused, and he was afraid of

the panic. But the thought asserted itself, and persisted, until it produced a vision of his body totally

frozen. This was too much, and he made another wild run along the trail. Once he slowed down to a

walk, but the thought of the freezing extending itself made him run again.

And all the time the dog ran with him, at his heels. When he fell down a second time, it curled its

tail over its forefeet and sat in front of him facing him curiously eager and intent. The warmth and

security of the animal angered him, and he cursed it till it flattened down its ears appeasingly. This

time the shivering came more quickly upon the man. He was losing in his battle with the frost. It

was creeping into his body from all sides. The thought of it drove him on, but he ran no more than a

hundred feet, when he staggered and pitched headlong. It was his last panic. When he had

recovered his breath and control, he sat up and entertained in his mind the conception of meeting

death with dignity. However, the conception did not come to him in such terms. His idea of it was

that he had been making a fool of himself, running around like a chicken with its head cut off--such

was the simile that occurred to him. Well, he was bound to freeze anyway, and he might as well

take it decently. With this new-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness. A

good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was like taking an anaesthetic. Freezing was not so

bad as people thought. There were lots worse ways to die.

He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly he found himself with them, coming along

the trail and looking for himself. And, still with them, he came around a turn in the trail and found

himself lying in the snow. He did not belong with himself any more, for even then he was out of

himself, standing with the boys and looking at himself in the snow. It certainly was cold, was his

thought. When he got back to the States he could tell the folks what real cold was. He drifted on

from this to a vision of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly, warm and

comfortable, and smoking a pipe.

"You were right, old hoss; you were right," the man mumbled to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek.

Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he

had ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow

twilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in the dog's experience had it

known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eager

yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly,

then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained

silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of

death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the

stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the

trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers.

Supplemental Material

To Build a Fire……………Historical Setting/The Klondike Gold Rush

The Klondike Gold Rush

On wandering around Seattle I came across Klondike Gold Rush Museum which charted the history of the

Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Parkland .

The Klondike gold rush changed the northern regions of the North American forever. Thousands of people

left their homes around the world to converse on an isolated watershed in Canada’s Yukon territory.

Klondikers, as they came to be known, departed from ports in Seattle and Vancouver and ventured 1,000

miles north to the tiny coastal towns of Skagway and Dyea. They made their way over the Chilkoot or

White pass trails to the headwaters of the Yukon river. On the shorts of Lake Benenett and Lindeman,

Klondikers then built boats to float the 550 miles to the boomtown of Dawson city, where the Klondike and

Yukon rivers flowed past some of the richest gold fields ever discovered.

Klondike Gold Fields Map (Source: http://www.nps.gov/klgo/forkids/the-story-of-the-klondike-gold-rush-pg-2.htm)

After thousands of miles of travel, most Klondikers would discover they were too late; prospectors already

in the region had staked all the productive ground years before. Many pushed on or simply went home,

outer stayed and became entrepreneurs making a living selling goods or room and board to stampeders.

The hold rush so heavily population the north that Dawson remains the capital of the Yukon Territory until

the early 1950s.

Klondikers spoke glowingly of this adventure the rest of their lives. Poet Robert Service recalled a wide and

wild land, an untamed country, and a place that could be neither easily conquered nor forgotten.

On August 16, 1896, a Native Tagish/Tlingit man named Skookum Jim Mason along with his brother in law

George Washington Carmack and nephew Dawson Charlie found gold on a tributary of the Klondike river

that would become known as Bonanza Creek. A claim filed the next day in Fortymile 50 miles downriver,

triggered a stampede among prospectors already in the remote Interior. Within months, all claims along

the Bonanza and neighbouring tributaries had been staked. But word that the area was staked out wouldn’t

reach the outside world before thousands of peoples from all over the world headed north.

The wild lands weren’t empty when prospectors and adventurers arrived. Native people had lived here for

thousands of years, Tlingit people lived on the coast near Skagway and Dyea; Tagish First Nations people

lived in the area of Carcross and along the Yukon and Klondike Rivers.

The Tlingit lived off the bounty of the land and waters fishing for salmon andhalibut. Berries and herbs

were plentiful and were gathered for food and medicine. Strong trees provider the materials for homes and

canoes. The Tagish had better access to mammals like Caribou and moose for hides, and lynx, beaver and

weasel for furs. Trade routes across the mountains, like the Chilkoot trail, provided vital goods to both

cultures.

By the early 1800s Tlingits also successfully traded with Europeans and Americans. The fur trade focused

attention on trade routes, but the Tlingit s kept non-natives from using the Chilkoot and Chikat passes

until 1880 when internal strike broke out.

LEFT: Stampeders on the Chilkoot Pass 1898 (Source: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chilkoot_pass_summit_1898.png)

RIGHT:(Source: http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/hegg&CISOPTR=120&CISOBOX=1&REC=3)

Taking advantage of the situation, the U.S military convinced the Tlingits to allow non-Natives access to the

Chilkoot trail, which settled the matters. That year also marked the beginning of the arrangement between

white prospectors and Tlingit packers. This had a negative consequence however. Contact with early

prospectors, and later the gold rush stampeders, stressed both the Native cultures and the ecological

balance of the environment.

Roughly ¾ of all Stampeders came through Seattle, thanks to the Seattle Camber of Commerce, which

advertised heavily throughout the US. A century later, travellers till flock to Seattle to follow their dreams

north but in search of different riches – magnificent forests, icy glaciers and deep fjords, the realm of bears,

wolves, whales and salmon.

Those who were about to embark on the journey north who didn’t’ know how to live in the wilderness

risked starvation. Concerned about the lack of supplies and provision for the incoming hordes, the North

West mounted Police posted an order in February 1898 that required every miner entering Canada to bring

with them enough provisions to last a year. Seattle merchants found their own gold mine in supplying the

stampers, and happily provided the large supplies to people. Some gold seekers paid Seattle merchants

more than $1,000 (around $22,000 today) to outfit them with what they would need. Seattle is thought to

have made around $25million in the first year from this trade. Once they had their supplies, gold-seekers

headed north. The majority of the stampeders traveled through Alaska’s Inside Passage in overcrowded

vessels of questionable seaworthiness, without any of the navigational aids today’s adventurers take for

granted. Of the hundred thousand people who set out for the goldfields, most chose one of two rugged

routes. Many landed in Skagway, gateway to the White Pass trail. Others made it to Dyea, further up the

canal at the delta of the Taiya river. takeoff point for the Chilkoot Trail, a long established Tlingit trade

route to the interior.

Gold Rush Timeline

August 16, 1896: Gold Discovered on the Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike river, by Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and George Washington Carmack.

Autumn 1896: Rush for the Klondike gold by those in nearby Fortymile and Circule and others already within Northern Canada and Alaska.

July 14, 1897: SS Exelsior lands in San Francisco with miners who had struck it rich in the gold fields.

July 17, 1897: SS Portland docked at Seattle preceeded by a reporter on a tug boat, claiming ‘more than a ton of gold on board’. Within days, all possible passage north was booked.

Autumn of 1897: Stampeders rush to the towns of Skagway and Dyea. Skagway’s population booms from 5 to 5,000 in one month. Today, it is home to around 850 people.

Winter of 1897-98: An estimated 20,000 stampeders spend the winter at Bennett, and 10,000 at Lindeman, building boats and waiting for the Yukon River to thaw and break up.

May 29, 1898: Yukon river breaks up within 48 hours, more than 7,000 vessels leave Bennett for Dawson.

Summer of 1898: An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people arrive at Dawson and the Klondike goldfields.

August of 1898: Most stampeders give up and head home after finding all the gold bearing lands been claimed. The next gold rush, to Atlin, British Columbia begins.

Autumn of 1898: First gold rush to Nome begins, signaling the final end of the Klondike gold rush. Some stampeders return to the Eagle area to stake claims initially passed over.

May 1898-1900: The White Pass and Yukon Route railroad is built in two years from Skagway to White Hose. Its completion heralds the demise of the Chilkoot Trail and the towns of Dyea and Bennett.

White Pass Trail

Skagway was the first choice for many stampeders as it was the departure point for the White Pass trail.

Now largely reclaimed by the forest. In the early 1890s, Captain Moore and his son Ben, built several

business ventures hoping to capitalize on a gold rush they predicted to happen. They built a wharf and a

saw mill , ad widened a trail up to White Pass, as a possible alternative to the Chilkoot trail.

Hoping to cash in on the rush north, Moore promoted the White Pass Trail as a better choice for

stampeders. But after only two months of abuse in the first summer, the trail became a muddy, rocky

nightmare and head to be closed until repairs cold make it passable. Because the White Pass Trail was not

as steep as the Chilkoot Trail, stampeders tried to use packhorses to carry their goods, and themselves, but

the awful condition of the trail took its toll on the stampeders and their animals.

LEFT: Stampeders on the White Pass Trail (Source: http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/digitization/public/search_detail.php?imageId=60526#)

RIGHT:Chilkoot Trail (Source: http://www.tentativeplans.com/2009/08/chilkoot-trail.html)

White Pass and Yukon route railroad

Begin in 1898 as an alternate route to the rugged White Pass Trail from Skagway to Bennett, the White Pass

and Yukon route railroad was completed in just two years. By then the stampede had peaked, yet the

railroad would continue to supply miners and mining operations for years to come. The building of the

White Pass and Yukon Route, the first railroad in Alaska, and the

northernmost in North America at the time, is one of the world’s greatest

engineering feats of its time.

The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad (Source:

http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/hegg&CISOPTR=510&CISOBOX=1&REC=9)

Chilkoot Trail Choosing not to gamble on the White Pass trail, tens of thousands of stampeders tackled

the Chilkoot trail out of nearby Dyea; of those only an estimated 30,000 made It over the pass. The brutally

steep, final 800 foot climb to the summit was a nightmare. Stampeders traversed with all their equipment

and supplies . What would have been a 33 mile hike from Dyea over the summit to Bennett became more

like a thousand mile strenuous trek. Many gave up. Others were spooked from using it after the deadly

avalanche a smile south of the summit 1898.

Once the stampeders had reached Lake Bennett, they still had a long way to go. Most arrived too late, the

lakes had iced over and would have to wait out winter. Trees became lumber and everyone became a

boatman. Every type of craft imaginable was cobbled together to carry the prospective miners to the

confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers.

As soon as the ice broke up on May 29, 1898, the exodus began. Within 48 hours, more than 7,000 vessels

left Bennett for Dawson. Many who set out would lose their lives when their makeshift boats hit the

Yukon’s treacherous rapids near Whitehorse and further down river at Five Fingers. The North West

Mounted Police tried to save lives with checkpoints and boat registrations, but the Yukon would claimed

many of the inexperienced and careless. Even today, boat captains cruise the river carefully each spring,

testing to see where sandbars may have shifted and remember where shipwrecks lurk.

In the years during and following the gold rush, river boats reigned as the queens of the river, navigating

shoals and rapids to bring almost all of the goods and passengers to the Yukon.

Veins of Gold – Tintina Trench

Riverboat passengers heading for gold in the 1890s might not have noticed the deep valley running along

the river, but drivers on the Klondike Highway today can see it clearly from the road as it nears Dawson

City from Whitehorse. Exciting geologically, it’s the source of the vast mineral wealth of the Yukon. It’s why

there was gold in these hills. Twos sides of fault move alongside each other here, shaking the earth and

grinding up rocks over the last 85 million years, ultimately forming the trench and valley. Rocks on the

northeast side are old; sedimentary rocks 1,000 million to 300 million years old. Rocks on the southwest

side of the trench are mostly young, 350 to 20 million years old, mainly igneous and metamorphic.

Tintina Trench (Source: http://picasaweb.google.com/PennyXE/Cccts2010DempsterTour02#)

On the southern plate, in the vicinity of present day Dawson City near the junction of the Klondike and

Yukon rivers, rich veins of quartz held one of the largest concentrations of gold in the world, unused for

millions of years before being noticed by prospectors in the late nineteenth century.

Dawson City – Paris of the North

After word got out that fold was found in the hills and valleys on the tributaries of the Klondike River,

Fortymile trader Joe Ladue quickly travelled to the site and founded the city of Dawson. He made his

fortune from the miners, rather than the mines. A tent city sprang up where the Klondike flowed into the

Yukon River and Dawson city boomed. By 1989, 30,00 to 40,000 people had arrived.

Most of the Klondike stampeders didn’t reach the town of Dawson City until two years after the strike, and

by then all of the good claims had long since been staked. Fueled by the wealth of gold coming out of the

hills, elaborate hotels, theatres, and dance halls were built in Dawson. The town at the heart of the flurry

became a permanent home to many of those first entrepreneurs and their families. By 1902, only about

5,000 people stayed behind after gold rushes drew everyone to Nome and Fairbanks, but the town remained

the capital of the Yukon Territory until 1953.

Dawson City (Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dawson_City_and_the_Klondike_River,_YT,_about_1898.jpg)

For many who finally made it to Dawson in 1897-98, it was too late all the claims had been staked. Many

gave up and went home via the Yukon River to St. Michael on the Alaska coast to catch a vessel south.

Others fanned out into the countryside of floated down the Yukon River to Fortymile, where gold has been

found in 186, or onto Eagle and Circle to try their luck prospecting for gold. Some went onto Nome, carried

long with the next stampede.

The Klondikers who chose to stay worked claims for others by taking out a lease to mine for gold on

someone else’s claim. But it was a hard, cold, isolated life. In the summer, placer miners swirled gravels

from river beds, in pans with water. Since gold is heavier than gravel, it sinks to the bottom as the rest

washes out. The yield of a claim was often measured in how much gold remained in the pan. While some

yielded only specks, others reported as much as $10,000 worth of gold in one pan, although this would have

been rare.

The huge quantitates of gold brought out of the Klondike during the gold rush has to be washed out of

stream beds, dug out of bedrocks, or dredged by the bucketful’s from gravel beds. Since some rich veins

were buried under permafrost, miners built fires to melt the ice so they could dig down the to frozen ‘pay

dirt’. Mounds of earth, dug by hand, piled up beside the tunnels to sit until spring when water was running

and the gold could be washed out of the dirt. Some struck gold, some gave up. Most departed by paddle

wheeler down the Yukon river and over the Coast Mountains the way they came. Captains skillfully

navigate passed sandbars that shift year to year, and rocky outcrops with ominous names like Shipwreck

Rock. The five-to-six knot current sweeps around steep cliffs that drop into the water, then past remnants

of forest singed by massive wildfires that scarred the landscape. This wild land, little changed from the days

of the stampeders, attracts few residents to tough out the long, cold winters.

LEFT: Klondike Gold Mining (Source: http://www.juggle.com/klondike-gold-rush)

RIGHT: Klondike Gold Rush Miners (Source: http://klondikegoldrushwa.areaparks.com/parkinfo.html?pid=16838)

The Wilderness

The river slips past a wilderness that’s been home to the Tron’dek Hwech’en for thousands of years. Prior to

the gold rush of 1898, the Tron’dek Hwech’en fished for Salmon on the Klondike and Yukon rivers, and to

preserve their traditions during the stampede, Chief Issac moved the community two miles downriver to

Moosehide Village. Descendants still gather there today for the bi-annual Moosehide Gathering. Eight miles

beyond the Canadian border, the tiny community of Eagle, Alaska comes into view. A haven for prospectors

in 1897, the town is named for the bald eagles that once nested on the bluff. Its traditional Han name,

T’awdlin, means ‘where the currents strike the bluff’. The Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve protects

a wild length of the Yukon River and the entire88 mile Charley river basin.

Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve Map (Source: http://mappery.com/Yukon-Charley-Rivers-National-Preserve-Map)

From it’s headwaters in the Coast Mountains of Canada, the Yukon River flows 2,300 miles in a wide arc to

the Bering Sea. The river flows near northwest through Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve for128

miles. As it enters the preserve near Eagle, the river runs past high buffs and heavily forested hills. Yukon-

Charley is home to 20% of the United State’s population of peregrine falcons, once an endangered species.

Peregrines nest and rear their young in this area of the wild, undeveloped land. Here bears and wolves roam

near rustic cabins and eagles fly high over historic sites, reminders of the importance of the Yukon River

during the 1898 gold rush.

RIGHT: The Charley River (Source: http://www.ak.nrcs.usda.gov/soils/YukonCharley/YukonCharley.html)

LEFT: The Yukon River (Source: http://www.ak.nrcs.usda.gov/soils/YukonCharley/YukonCharley.html)

“The Most Dangerous Game”

By Richard Connell

“The Most Dangerous Game”

by Richard Connell "OFF THERE to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney." It's rather a mystery--"

"What island is it?" Rainsford asked.

"The old charts call it `Ship-Trap Island,"' Whitney replied." A suggestive name, isn't it? Sailors

have a curious dread of the place. I don't know why. Some superstition--"

"Can't see it," remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the dank tropical night that was

palpable as it pressed its thick warm blackness in upon the yacht.

"You've good eyes," said Whitney, with a laugh," and I've seen you pick off a moose moving in

the brown fall bush at four hundred yards, but even you can't see four miles or so through a

moonless Caribbean night."

"Nor four yards," admitted Rainsford. "Ugh! It's like moist black velvet."

"It will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "We should make it in a few days. I hope the

jaguar guns have come from Purdey's. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great

sport, hunting."

"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.

"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."

"Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who

cares how a jaguar feels?"

"Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney.

"Bah! They've no understanding."

"Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death."

"Nonsense," laughed Rainsford. "This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The

world is made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters. Do

you think we've passed that island yet?"

"I can't tell in the dark. I hope so."

"Why? " asked Rainsford.

"The place has a reputation--a bad one."

"Cannibals?" suggested Rainsford.

"Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn't live in such a God-forsaken place. But it's gotten into sailor

lore, somehow. Didn't you notice that the crew's nerves seemed a bit jumpy today?"

"They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen--"

"Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who'd go up to the devil himself and ask him for a

light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. All I could get out of him was

`This place has an evil name among seafaring men, sir.' Then he said to me, very gravely, `Don't

you feel anything?'--as if the air about us was actually poisonous. Now, you mustn't laugh when I

tell you this--I did feel something like a sudden chill.

"There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We were drawing near the

island then. What I felt was a--a mental chill; a sort of sudden dread."

"Pure imagination," said Rainsford.

"One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship's company with his fear."

"Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they are in

danger. Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing--with wave lengths, just as sound and light

have. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I'm glad we're getting

out of this zone. Well, I think I'll turn in now, Rainsford."

"I'm not sleepy," said Rainsford. "I'm going to smoke another pipe up on the afterdeck."

"Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast."

"Right. Good night, Whitney."

There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the muffled throb of the engine that

drove the yacht swiftly through the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the

propeller.

Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier. The sensuous

drowsiness of the night was on him." It's so dark," he thought, "that I could sleep without closing

my eyes; the night would be my eyelids--"

An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters,

could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness,

someone had fired a gun three times.

Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the

direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He

leaped upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope,

was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he

realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the

blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head.

He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped

him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he

struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had

swum fifty feet. A certain coolheadedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been

in a tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht,

but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself

out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The lights of the yacht became faint and ever-

vanishing fireflies; then they were blotted out entirely by the night.

Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that

direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly

endless time he fought the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred

more and then--

Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high screaming sound, the sound of an

animal in an extremity of anguish and terror.

He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he

swam toward the sound. He heard it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.

"Pistol shot," muttered Rainsford, swimming on.

Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears--the most welcome he had

ever heard--the muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on

the rocks before he saw them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them.

With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared

to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw,

he reached a flat place at the top. Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What

perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did not concern Rainsford just then.

All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him.

He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of his life.

When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon.

Sleep had given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost

cheerfully.

"Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there is food," he thought. But

what kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and

ragged jungle fringed the shore.

He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and trees; it was easier to go

along the shore, and Rainsford floundered along by the water. Not far from where he landed, he

stopped.

Some wounded thing--by the evidence, a large animal--had thrashed about in the underbrush; the

jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained

crimson. A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainsford's eye and he picked it up. It

was an empty cartridge.

"A twenty-two," he remarked. "That's odd. It must have been a fairly large animal too. The

hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. It's clear that the brute put up a fight. I

suppose the first three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded it. The

last shot was when he trailed it here and finished it."

He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find--the print of hunting boots.

They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now

slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle

down on the island.

Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainsford sighted the lights. He came

upon them as he turned a crook in the coast line; and his first thought was that be had come upon

a village, for there were many lights. But as he forged along he saw to his great astonishment that

all the lights were in one enormous building--a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging

upward into the gloom. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set

on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in

the shadows.

"Mirage," thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found, when he opened the tall spiked

iron gate. The stone steps were real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a

knocker was real enough; yet above it all hung an air of unreality.

He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. He let it fall,

and it startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door

remained closed. Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door opened then-

-opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring--and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring

gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man

Rainsford had ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. In his

hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart.

Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.

"Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was disarming. "I'm no robber.

I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford of New York City."

The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant

were a statue. He gave no sign that he understood Rainsford's words, or that he had even heard

them. He was dressed in uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.

"I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began again. "I fell off a yacht. I am hungry."

The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford

saw the man's free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels

together and stand at attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect,

slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand.

In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, he

said, "It is a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated

hunter, to my home."

Automatically Rainsford shook the man's hand.

"I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see," explained the man. "I am

General Zaroff."

Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome; his second was that there

was an original, almost bizarre quality about the general's face. He was a tall man past middle

age, for his hair was a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military mustache were as

black as the night from which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very bright. He

had high cheekbones, a sharpcut nose, a spare, dark face--the face of a man used to giving

orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign. The

giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.

"Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the general, "but he has the misfortune to be deaf

and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I'm afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage."

"Is he Russian?"

"He is a Cossack," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. "So am I."

"Come," he said, "we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. Now you want clothes, food,

rest. You shall have them. This is a most-restful spot."

Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound.

"Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford," said the general. "I was about to have my dinner

when you came. I'll wait for you. You'll find that my clothes will fit you, I think."

It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough for six men that

Rainsford followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on,

noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank

of duke.

The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a

medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels,

its high ceiling, its vast refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. About the

hall were mounted heads of many animals--lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more

perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen. At the great table the general was sitting, alone.

"You'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford," he suggested. The cocktail was surpassingly good; and,

Rainsford noted, the table apointments were of the finest--the linen, the crystal, the silver, the

china.

They were eating borsch, the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates. Half

apologetically General Zaroff said, "We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization

here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the

champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip?"

"Not in the least," declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a most thoughtful and affable

host, a true cosmopolite. But there was one small trait of .the general's that made Rainsford

uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him,

appraising him narrowly.

"Perhaps," said General Zaroff, "you were surprised that I recognized your name. You see, I read

all books on hunting published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my

life, Mr. Rains. ford, and it is the hunt."

"You have some wonderful heads here," said Rainsford as he ate a particularly well-cooked filet

mignon. " That Cape buffalo is the largest I ever saw."

"Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster."

"Did he charge you?"

"Hurled me against a tree," said the general. "Fractured my skull. But I got the brute."

"I've always thought," said Rainsord, "that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big

game."

For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he

said slowly, "No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He

sipped his wine. "Here in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow tone, "I hunt

more dangerous game."

Rainsford expressed his surprise. "Is there big game on this island?"

The general nodded. "The biggest."

"Really?"

"Oh, it isn't here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island."

"What have you imported, general?" Rainsford asked. "Tigers?"

The general smiled. "No," he said. "Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago. I

exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr.

Rainsford."

The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his guest a long black

cigarette with a silver tip; it was perfumed and gave off a smell like incense.

"We will have some capital hunting, you and I," said the general. "I shall be most glad to have

your society."

"But what game--" began Rainsford.

"I'll tell you," said the general. "You will be amused, I know. I think I may say, in all modesty,

that I have done a rare thing. I have invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of

port?"

"Thank you, general."

The general filled both glasses, and said, "God makes some men poets. Some He makes kings,

some beggars. Me He made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was

a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman.

When I was only five years old he gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to

shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of his prize turkeys with it, he did not punish me; he

complimented me on my marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was ten.

My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army--it was expected of noblemen's

sons--and for a time commanded a division of Cossack cavalry, but my real interest was always

the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every land. It would be impossible for me to tell

you how many animals I have killed."

The general puffed at his cigarette.

"After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was imprudent for an officer of the Czar to

stay there. Many noble Russians lost everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in American

securities, so I shall never have to open a tearoom in Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in Paris.

Naturally, I continued to hunt--grizzliest in your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses

in East Africa. It was in Africa that the Cape buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As

soon as I recovered I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually

cunning. They weren't." The Cossack sighed. "They were no match at all for a hunter with his

wits about him, and a high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my tent with

a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into my mind. Hunting was

beginning to bore me! And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in America

businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the business that has been their life."

"Yes, that's so," said Rainsford.

The general smiled. "I had no wish to go to pieces," he said. "I must do something. Now, mine is

an analytical mind, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase."

"No doubt, General Zaroff."

"So," continued the general, "I asked myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. You are

much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can

guess the answer."

"What was it?"

"Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call `a sporting proposition.' It had become too

easy. I always got my quarry. Always. There is no greater bore than perfection."

The general lit a fresh cigarette.

"No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The

animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought

of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you."

Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying.

"It came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on.

"And that was?"

The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with

success. "I had to invent a new animal to hunt," he said.

"A new animal? You're joking." "Not at all," said the general. "I never joke about hunting. I

needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island built this house, and here I do my

hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes--there are jungles with a maze of traits in them,

hills, swamps--"

"But the animal, General Zaroff?"

"Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other

hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have

a quarry with which I can match my wits."

Rainsford's bewilderment showed in his face.

"I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, `What are the attributes of

an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, `It must have courage, cunning, and, above all,

it must be able to reason."'

"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."

"But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford.

"And why not?"

"I can't believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke."

"Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting."

"Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder."

The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford quizzically. "I refuse to

believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas

about the value of human life. Surely your experiences in the war--"

"Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly.

Laughter shook the general. "How extraordinarily droll you are!" he said. "One does not expect

nowadays to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naive, and, if

I may say so, mid-Victorian point of view. It's like finding a snuffbox in a limousine. Ah, well,

doubtless you had Puritan ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I'll wager you'll

forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You've a genuine new thrill in store for you,

Mr. Rainsford."

"Thank you, I'm a hunter, not a murderer."

"Dear me," said the general, quite unruffled, "again that unpleasant word. But I think I can show

you that your scruples are quite ill founded."

"Yes?"

"Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong. The weak

of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my

gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth: sailors from tramp ships--

lassars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels--a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a

score of them."

"But they are men," said Rainsford hotly.

"Precisely," said the general. "That is why I use them. It gives me pleasure. They can reason,

after a fashion. So they are dangerous."

"But where do you get them?"

The general's left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. "This island is called Ship Trap," he answered.

"Sometimes an angry god of the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is not

so kind, I help Providence a bit. Come to the window with me."

Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea.

"Watch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night. Rainsford's eyes saw only

blackness, and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of

lights.

The general chuckled. "They indicate a channel," he said, "where there's none; giant rocks with

razor edges crouch like a sea monster with wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I

crush this nut." He dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down

on it. "Oh, yes," he said, casually, as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity. We try to be

civilized here."

"Civilized? And you shoot down men?"

A trace of anger was in the general's black eyes, but it was there for but a second; and he said, in

his most pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a righteous young man you are! I assure you I do not

do the thing you suggest. That would be barbarous. I treat these visitors with every consideration.

They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition. You shall

see for yourself tomorrow."

"What do you mean?"

"We'll visit my training school," smiled the general. "It's in the cellar. I have about a dozen

pupils down there now. They're from the Spanish bark San Lucar that had the bad luck to go on

the rocks out there. A very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens and more accustomed to

the deck than to the jungle." He raised his hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick

Turkish coffee. Rainsford, with an effort, held his tongue in check.

"It's a game, you see," pursued the general blandly. "I suggest to one of them that we go hunting.

I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours' start. I am to

follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for

three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him "--the general smiled--" he loses."

"Suppose he refuses to be hunted?"

"Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. He need not play that game if he doesn't

wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving

as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr.

Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt."

"And if they win?"

The smile on the general's face widened. "To date I have not lost," he said. Then he added,

hastily: "I don't wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the

most elementary sort of problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I eventually

had to use the dogs."

"The dogs?"

"This way, please. I'll show you."

The general steered Rainsford to a window. The lights from the windows sent a flickering

illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see

moving about there a dozen or so huge black shapes; as they turned toward him, their eyes

glittered greenly.

"A rather good lot, I think," observed the general. "They are let out at seven every night. If

anyone should try to get into my house--or out of it--something extremely regrettable would

occur to him." He hummed a snatch of song from the Folies Bergere.

"And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you come

with me to the library?"

"I hope," said Rainsford, "that you will excuse me tonight, General Zaroff. I'm really not feeling

well."

"Ah, indeed?" the general inquired solicitously. "Well, I suppose that's only natural, after your

long swim. You need a good, restful night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel like a new man, I'll

wager. Then we'll hunt, eh? I've one rather promising prospect--" Rainsford was hurrying from

the room.

"Sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general. "I expect rather fair sport--a big, strong,

black. He looks resourceful--Well, good night, Mr. Rainsford; I hope you have a good night's

rest."

The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fiber of his

being, but nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay, eyes

wide open. Once he thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He sought

to throw open the door; it would not open. He went to the window and looked out. His room was

high up in one of the towers. The lights of the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent;

but there was a fragment of sallow moon, and by its wan light he could see, dimly, the courtyard.

There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms; the hounds

heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back

to the bed and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had achieved a

doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a

pistol.

General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a

country squire. He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health.

"As for me," sighed the general, "I do not feel so well. I am worried, Mr. Rainsford. Last night I

detected traces of my old complaint."

To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Ennui. Boredom."

Then, taking a second helping of crpes Suzette, the general explained: "The hunting was not

good last night. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all.

That's the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know

how to get about in the woods. They do excessively stupid and obvious things. It's most

annoying. Will you have another glass of Chablis, Mr. Rainsford?"

"General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once."

The general raised his thickets of eyebrows; he seemed hurt. "But, my dear fellow," the general

protested, "you've only just come. You've had no hunting--"

"I wish to go today," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying

him. General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened.

He filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle.

"Tonight," said the general, "we will hunt--you and I."

Rainsford shook his head. "No, general," he said. "I will not hunt."

The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape. "As you wish, my

friend," he said. "The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you

will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan's?"

He nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, his thick arms crossed on his

hogshead of chest.

"You don't mean--" cried Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting?

This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel--at last." The general raised

his glass, but Rainsford sat staring at him.

"You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically." Your brain against

mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess!

And the stake is not without value, eh?"

"And if I win--" began Rainsford huskily.

"I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeat if I do not find you by midnight of the third day," said

General Zaroff. "My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town." The general read what

Rainsford was thinking.

"Oh, you can trust me," said the Cossack. "I will give you my word as a gentleman and a

sportsman. Of course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here."

"I'll agree to nothing of the kind," said Rainsford.

"Oh," said the general, "in that case--But why discuss that now? Three days hence we can

discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless--"

The general sipped his wine.

Then a businesslike air animated him. "Ivan," he said to Rainsford, "will supply you with hunting

clothes, food, a knife. I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that

you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. There's

quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed

him. You can imagine my feelings, Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in

my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always' take a siesta after lunch. You'll

hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk.

Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think? Au revoir, Mr.

Rainsford, au revoir." General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room.

From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of

food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked

revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist.

Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. "I must keep my nerve. I must

keep my nerve," he said through tight teeth.

He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut behind him. His

whole idea at first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff; and, to this end, he

had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got

a grip on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the situation. He saw that

straight flight was futile; inevitably it would bring him face to face with the sea. He was in a

picture with a frame of water, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame.

"I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off from the rude path he had

been following into the trackless wilderness. He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled

on his trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox.

Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded

ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength.

His need for rest was imperative and he thought, "I have played the fox, now I must play the cat

of the fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care

to leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the

broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of

security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself;

only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But

perhaps the general was a devil--

An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford,

although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning when a dingy gray was

varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction.

Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding

way Rainsford had come. He flattened himself down on the limb and, through a screen of leaves

almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. . . . That which was approaching was a man.

It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the

ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the

ground. Rainsford's impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the

general's right hand held something metallic--a small automatic pistol.

The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he straightened up and took

from his case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford's

nostrils.

Rainsford held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch

up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the

hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown

face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and

walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against

his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.

The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and

numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely

difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to

see his quarry.

Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible. It sent a shudder of cold horror through his

whole being. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back?

Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident

as the sun that had by now pushed through the morning mists. The general was playing with him!

The general was saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse.

Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror.

"I will not lose my nerve. I will not."

He slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods. His face was set and he forced

the machinery of his mind to function. Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped

where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of

food, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy.

The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away.

He did not have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse.

Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped

those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how

faint, in the moss. So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford

had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as

he touched it, the general sensed his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he

was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one,

crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his

alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he

drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again

gripping his heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle.

"Rainsford," called the general, "if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let

me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay mancatcher. Luckily for me I,

too, have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have

my wound dressed; it's only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back."

When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took up his flight again. It

was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then

darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation

grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely.

Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck

sucked viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort, he tore his feet loose.

He knew where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand.

His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness

was trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back

from the quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig.

Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second's delay meant death. That had been a

placid pastime compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his

shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine

point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying

fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the

pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a

lightning-charred tree.

He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the

night breeze brought him the perfume of the general's cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the

general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot.

Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in

a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the

breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the

pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment. Then he cowered

back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand.

"You've done well, Rainsford," the voice of the general called. "Your Burmese tiger pit has

claimed one of my best dogs. Again you score. I think, Mr. Rainsford, Ill see what you can do

against my whole pack. I'm going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening."

At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know

that he had new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he

knew it. It was the baying of a pack of hounds.

Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was

suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there,

thinking. An idea that held a wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away

from the swamp.

The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge Rainsford

climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving.

Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him Rainsford made

out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant

Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be

holding the pack in leash.

They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native

trick he had learned in Uganda. He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling

and to it he fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild

grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as

they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels.

He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's

heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife.

He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was

in Rainsford's brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff

was still on his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had

not wholly failed.

Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again.

"Nerve, nerve, nerve!" he panted, as he dashed along. A blue gap showed between the trees dead

ahead. Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it.

It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the chateau.

Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds.

Then he leaped far out into the sea. . . .

When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped. For some

minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then be

sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from

Madame Butterfly.

General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great paneled dining hall that evening.

With it he had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept

him from perfect enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the

other was that his quarry had escaped him; of course, the American hadn't played the game--so

thought the general as he tasted his after-dinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself,

from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired,

he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little moonlight, so, before turning on his

light, he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He could see the great hounds,

and he called, "Better luck another time," to them. Then he switched on the light.

A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there.

"Rainsford!" screamed the general. "How in God's name did you get here?"

"Swam," said Rainsford. "I found it quicker than walking through the jungle."

The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he said. "You have won the

game."

Rainsford did not smile. "I am still a beast at bay," he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "Get ready,

General Zaroff."

The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said. "Splendid! One of us is to furnish a

repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford." . . .

He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.

Supplemental Material

The Most Dangerous Game / Vocabulary and Questions

VOCABULARY for The Most Dangerous Game

Afterdeck.- the unprotected deck behind the bridge of a ship

Amended .- to change for the better; improve: to amend one's ways

Amenities.- an agreeable way or manner; courtesy; civility

Astrakhan.- a fur of young lambs, with lustrous, closely curled wool, from Astrakhan

Blanket.- a large, rectangular piece of soft fabric, often with bound edges, used especially for warmth as a bed

covering.

Bluff.- a cliff, headland, or hill with a broad, steep face

Brier.- a prickly plant or shrub, especially the sweetbrier or a greenbrier.

Cliff.- a high steep face of a rock.

Crags.- a steep, rugged rock; rough, broken, projecting part of a rock.

Deaf.- partially or wholly lacking or deprived of the sense of hearing; unable to hear.

Dread.- to fear greatly; be in extreme apprehension of

Dumb.- lacking the power of speech (often offensive when applied to humans)

Eagerly.- keen or ardent in desire or feeling; impatiently longing

Faint.- feeling weak, dizzy, or exhausted; about to lose consciousness

Forged.- to form or make, especially by concentrated effort

Forsaken.- deserted; abandoned

Fringed.- a decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate

strip.

Gag.- to stop up the mouth of (a person) by putting something in it

Gloom.- total or partial darkness; dimness

Hurled.- to throw or fling with great force or vigor.

Leaped.- to spring through the air from one point or position to another; jump

Licked.- to pass the tongue over the surface of, as to moisten, taste

Lore.- learning, knowledge, or erudition

Lunged.- a sudden forward thrust, as with a sword or knife; stab.

Marksmanship.- a person who is skilled in shooting at a mark; a person who shoots well.

Mistaken.- erroneous; incorrect; wrong: a mistaken answer

Moist.- moderately or slightly wet; damp.

Muffled.- to wrap with something to deaden or prevent sound: to muffle drums Muffled

Muttered.- to utter words indistinctly or in a low tone, often as if talking to oneself; murmur.

Peer.- a person of the same legal status

Pinched off.- to squeeze or compress between the finger and thumb, the teeth, the jaws of an instrument, or the like.

Puffed.- a short, quick blast, as of wind or breath

Settle.- to appoint, fix, or resolve definitely and conclusively; agree upon (as time, price, or conditions)

Shattered.- to break (something) into pieces, as by a blow.

Sipped.- to drink (a liquid) a little at a time; take small tastes of:

Slender.- thin or slight

Snarl.- to growl threateningly or viciously, especially with a raised upper lip to bare the teeth, as a dog.

Spot.- a rounded mark or stain made by foreign matter, as mud, blood, paint, ink, etc.; a blot or speck.

Stained.- a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or chemically reacted with a material; a

spot not easily removed.

Startled.- to disturb or agitate suddenly as by surprise or alarm.

Steamer.- something propelled or operated by steam, as a steamship.

Strained.- affected or produced by effort; not natural or spontaneous; forced: strained hospitality.

Striking.- attractive; impressive: a scene of striking beauty.

Struck.- closed or otherwise affected by a strike of workers.

Struggled up.- to contend with an adversary or opposing force.

Swiftly.- moving or capable of moving with great speed or velocity; fleet; rapid

Swirling.- to move around or along with a whirling motion; whirl.

Swish.- to move with or make a sibilant sound, as a slender rod cutting sharply through the air or as small waves

washing on the shore.

Taint.- a trace of something bad, offensive, or harmful.

Thrill. - To affect with a sudden wave of keen emotion or excitement, as to produce a tremor or tingling sensation

through the body.

Throb.- to feel or exhibit emotion.

Tumbled.- to fall helplessly down, end over end, as by losing one's footing, support, or equilibrium.

Utter .- to give audible expression to; speak or pronounce: unable to utter her feelings.

Velvet.- a fabric of silk, nylon, acetate, rayon, etc., sometimes having a cotton backing, with a thick, soft pile

formed of loops of the warp thread either cut at the outer end or left uncut.

Withdrew.- to draw back, away, or aside; take back; remove.

Questions to Consider

What is the name of the island?

What does palpable mean in the following sentence: the dank tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick warm blackness in upon the yacht?

Consider what it means to be a hunter and what it means to be hunted. What does Rainsford mean when he says that Whitney is a hunter and not a philosopher.

Do you agree with Whitney that animals can understand fear?

How does Rainsford’s attitude about hunting differ from Whitney’s?

What 2 classes does Rainsford believe the world is made up of?

Why did sailors dread Ship Trap Island?

What did Whitney mean when he said he thought that evil was a tangible thing, with wave lengths, just like sound and light have?

Using the following sentence, what does indolently mean: Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier?

With what type of conflict is Rainsford suddenly confronted when he falls from the boat?

What made Rainsford swim in a certain direction after he realized his yacht was too far away?

As soon as he conquered one external conflict, the sea, which external conflict did he immediately face?

Just like readers make inferences, characters sometimes make inference too. How does Rainsford’s experience as a hunter help his skill at making inferences.

Using your inferring skills, why do you think Rainsford is surprised to find a large building?

Which details lead you to infer that the two men Rainsford meets in the castle have a shared military past? (hint: this salute is an old European formal salute to an officer of a higher rank.)

What does Zaroff reveal about Rainsford when they meet?

What race of people are Zaroff and Ivan?

What did Rainsford see in the hall that indicated Zaroff was a big-game hunter?

Point out that in many stories the external conflict and the internal conflict can arise from the same source. Point out the conversation on p.222 and ask students what questions might be running through Rainsford’s mind during this conversation with Zaroff.

Explain how Rainsford’s discomfort in this passage is both an internal and an external conflict.

How do the details about Zaroff’s life support the inference that he feels neither guilt nor fear concerning hunting?

Why had Zaroff become bored with hunting?

How was the “tragic moment” of being bored with hunting the sign of an internal conflict?

What is the epiphany that Rainsford suddenly has about Zaroff?

What methods does Zaroff use to get men to his island?

What do you think about Zaroff’s comment that he is civilized because he uses electricity to lure the ships?

Is Zaroff’s statement that his captives do not have to participate in the hunt true? Using inference, what kind of heads do you think Zaroff wants to show Rainsford?

How does Rainsford’s direct statement about wishing to leave make his internal conflict an external one?

Why is the game that Zaroff creates not fair for the hunted?

After Rainsford sets off to start the game, what new internal conflict does he reveal by stating “I must keep my nerve, I must keep my nerve.”

In thinking of ways to survive, Rainsford begins to think like the animals he so often hunts. What does he mean by the statement, “ I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable.”

After Zaroff arrives at the tree where Rainsford is hiding, why does he stop his eyes from looking just short of the branch where Rainsford is laying, smile and turn away? After his death trap fails, how does Rainsford’s feelings and approach change?

In many games and sports the conflict is made more intense when the element of time is added. This is the case when the dogs are getting closer to Rainsford. What traits does Rainsford exhibit under these circumstances that are often found in great athletes, military leaders and live-saving professions?

Why is Zaroff disappointed after Rainsford has lept into the sea?

How do the roles change at the end of the story?

Who wins the game at the end?

How can we infer that Rainsford is the winner?

“The Lottery”

By Shirley Jackson

“THE LOTTERY”

by Shirley Jackson

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full­summer-day; the flowers

were-blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the

square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people

that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th. But in this village, where there were only

about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in

the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty

sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into

boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby

Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example,

selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix­­ the villagers

pronounced this name "Dellacroy"­­eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and

guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over

their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their

older brothers or sisters.

Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and

taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they

smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their

menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon

the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly,

having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother's grasping hand and ran,

laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his

place between his father and his oldest brother.

The lottery was conducted­­as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program­­by Mr.

Summers who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round­faced, jovial man and he

ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him because he had no children and his wife was a scold.

When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among

the villagers, and he waved and called, "Little late today, folks." The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him,

carrying a three­ legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the

black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool,

and when Mr. Summers said, "Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?" there was a hesitation before

two men, Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr.

Summers stirred up the papers inside it.

The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool

had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke

frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was

represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of

the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make

a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every

year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black box grew shabbier each

year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original

wood color, and in some places faded or stained.

Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had

stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded,

Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been

used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued. had been all very well when the village was

tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was

necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr.

Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the

safe of Mr. Summers' coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square

next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had

spent one year in Mr. Graves' barn and another year underfoot in the post office, and sometimes it was set

on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.

There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the

lists to make up­­of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in

each family. There was the proper swearing­in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the

lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the

official of the lottery, a perfunctory. tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people

believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he

was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to

lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing

each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt

necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this;

in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very

proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.

Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came

hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the

backof the crowd. "Clean forgot what day it was," she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and

they both laughed softly. "Thought my old man was out back stacking wood," Mrs. Hutchinson went on.

"And then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty­

seventh and came a­running." She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, "You're in time,

though. They're still talking away up there."

Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing

near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the

crowd. The people separated good­humouredly to let her through: two or three people said, in voices just

loud enough to be heard across the crowd, "Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson," and "Bill, she made it

after all." Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully,

"Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, "Wouldn't

have me leave m'dishes in the sink, now, would you. Joe?" and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the

people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson's arrival.

"Well, now." Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with, so's we can go

back to work. Anybody ain't here?"

"Dunbar." several people said. "Dunbar. Dunbar."

Mr. Summers consulted his list. "Clyde Dunbar." he said. "That's right. He's broke his leg, hasn't he? Who's

drawing for him?"

"Me. I guess," a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. "Wife draws for her husband." Mr.

Summers said. "Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?" Although Mr. Summers and everyone

else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask

such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar

answered.

"Horace's not but sixteen vet." Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. "Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year."

"Right," Mr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, "Watson boy

drawing this year?"

A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. "Here," he said. "I’m drawing for my mother and me." He blinked

his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like "Good fellow, Jack."

and "Glad to see your mother's got a man to do it."

"Well," Mr. Summers said, "guess that's everyone. Old Man Warner make it?"

"Here," a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.

A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. "All ready?" he

called. "Now, I'll read the names­­heads of families first­­and the men come up and take a paper out of the

box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything

clear?"

The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were

quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, "Adams." A

man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. "Hi. Steve." Mr. Summers said and Mr. Adams

said, "Hi. Joe." They grinned at one another humourlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the

black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to

his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand.

"Allen." Mr. Summers said. "Anderson.... Bentham."

"Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries any more," Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the

back row.

"Seems like we got through with the last one only last week."

"Time sure goes fast,” Mrs. Graves said.

"Clark.... Delacroix"

"There goes my old man." Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.

"Dunbar," Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women said. "Go

on, Janey," and another said, "There she goes."

"We're next." Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box,

greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd

there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hand, turning them over and over nervously

Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper.

"Harburt.... Hutchinson."

"Get up there, Bill," Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.

"Jones."

"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village

they're talking of giving up the lottery."

Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good

enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any

more, live hat way for a while. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing

you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery," he added

petulantly. "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody."

"Some places have already quit lotteries." Mrs. Adams said.

"Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools."

"Martin." And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. "Overdyke.... Percy."

"I wish they'd hurry," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. "I wish they'd hurry."

"They're almost through," her son said.

"You get ready to run tell Dad," Mrs. Dunbar said.

Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box.

Then he called, "Warner."

"Seventy­seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. "Seventy­

seventh time."

"Watson" The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, "Don't be nervous, Jack," and

Mr. Summers said, "Take your time, son."

"Zanini."

After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of paper in the

air, said, "All right, fellows." For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened.

Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saving. "Who is it?" "Who's got it?" "Is it the Dunbars?"

"Is it the Watsons?" Then the voices began to say, "It's Hutchinson. It's Bill," "Bill Hutchinson's got it."

"Go tell your father," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.

People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at

the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time

enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"

"Be a good sport, Tessie," Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance."

"Shut up, Tessie," Bill Hutchinson said.

"Well, everyone," Mr. Summers said, "that was done pretty fast, and now we've got to be hurrying a little

more to get done in time." He consulted his next list. "Bill," he said, "you draw for the Hutchinson family.

You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?"

"There's Don and Eva," Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. "Make them take their chance!"

"Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie," Mr. Summers said gently. "You know that as well

as anyone else."

"It wasn't fair," Tessie said.

"I guess not, Joe." Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. "My daughter draws with her husband's family; that's

only fair. And I've got no other family except the kids."

"Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it's you," Mr. Summers said in explanation, "and as far

as drawing for households is concerned, that's you, too. Right?"

"Right," Bill Hutchinson said.

"How many kids, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked formally.

"Three," Bill Hutchinson said.

"There's Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me."

"All right, then," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you got their tickets back?"

Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. "Put them in the box, then," Mr. Summers directed.

"Take Bill's and put it in."

"I think we ought to start over," Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. "I tell you it wasn't fair. You

didn't give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that."

Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box,and he dropped all the papers but those onto

the ground where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.

"Listen, everybody," Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.

"Ready, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and

children, nodded.

"Remember," Mr. Summers said. "Take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one.

Harry, you help little Dave." Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to

the box. "Take a paper out of the box, Davy." Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and

laughed. "Take just one paper." Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you hold it for him." Mr. Graves took the

child's hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him

and looked up at him wonderingly.

"Nancy next," Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went

forward switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box "Bill, Jr.," Mr. Summers said, and Billy,

his face red and his feet overlarge, near knocked the box over as he got a paper out. "Tessie," Mr. Summers

said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She

snatched a paper out and held it behind her.

"Bill," Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out

at last with the slip of paper in it.

The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, "I hope it's not Nancy," and the sound of the whisper reached the

edges of the crowd.

"It's not the way it used to be." Old Man Warner said clearly. "People ain't the way they used to be."

"All right," Mr. Summers said. "Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave's."

Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and

everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill Jr. opened theirs at the same time and both beamed

and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.

"Tessie," Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill

unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.

"It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper, Bill."

Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it,

the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office.

Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.

"All right, folks." Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly."

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use

stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the

blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it

up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up."

Mr. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath, "I can't run at all. You'll have

to go ahead and I'll catch up with you."

The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now and she held her hands out desperately as

the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man

Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers,

with Mrs. Graves beside him.

"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

Supplemental Material

The Lottery / Questions and Literary Analysis

Questions to Consider

1. Describe the setting, using specific details from the story in your answer.

2. Explain the feelings of most people in town toward the lottery.

3. What evidence is there that the lottery has been going on for a long time?

4. What is Old Man Warner’s attitude about those who would like to change things?

5. Explain how the lottery works.

6. In what way is the title, “The Lottery”, misleading? Why would the author want to fool

the reader by having a tricky title?

Literary Analysis

By Michael J. Cummings © 2004

The Lottery: A Setting Analysis Shirley Jackson takes great care in creating a setting

for the story, The Lottery. She gives the reader a sense of comfort and stability from the very beginning.

It begins, “clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming

profusely and the grass was richly green.” The setting throughout The Lottery creates a sense of

peacefulness and tranquility, while portraying a typical town on a normal summer day. With the very first

words, Jackson begins to establish the environment for her plot. To begin, she tells the reader that the

story takes place on an early summer morning. This helps in providing a focus of the typicality of this

small town, a normal rural community. She also mentions that school has just recently let out for summer

break, which of course allows the children to run around at that time of day. Furthermore, she describes

the grass as “richly green and “the flowers were blooming profusely. These descriptions of the

surroundings give the reader a serene feeling about the town. The location of the square, “between the

post office and the bank, proves the smallness of this town, since everything centralizes at or near the

town square and it acts as the primary location for the remaining part of the story, playing a significant

role at the end setting of the story. Up to this point, nothing unordinary has happened, which might later

reflect an ironic ending. Eventually, small hints about the unusualness of this town are added. The author

points out significant buildings that surround the town square, but fails to describe a church or a

courthouse, which are common buildings to all communities. In this, there seems to be no central

governing body for this town, such as a court or a police station. Also, oddly enough, these people

celebrate Halloween but not Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving, the largest holidays that normal people

celebrate. However, Halloween implicates a certain proneness to defiant, evil activities. In addition, the

children are building a great pile of stones in one corner of the square.” An impression of the children as

normal children gathering rocks is counterbalanced by their ironical construction a massive pile of stones

in one corner, as if they were punished through labor. The introduction of the black box acts as the major

turning point for the setting. It symbolizes an immoral act to the villagers as “the villagers kept their

distance from it. The introduction of the black box into the setting changes the mood and the atmosphere

of the residents as they become uneasy around it. Furthermore, the black box changes the mood from

serene and peaceful to ominous, where the moment of illumination reaches climax at the very end of the

story. Through her use of subtle details in the setting, Shirley Jackson foreshadows the wicked emotional

ending, which lacks official authorities, by the incoherent mentioning of stones. Indeed, the story starts

to feel more and more uncomfortable, and the commonplace attitude of the townspeople remains even

during the stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson. They are all unaffected by the outcome except for, obviously, the

victim of their collaborate murder. Near the end, one of the women casually tells the victim to “be a good

sport” as they slaughter her with stones. In spite of the peaceful mood created by the town setting,

everyone commits a brutal act by stoning an innocent person. Throughout The Lottery, the setting plays

a significant role in portraying irony in the plot. However, Shirley Jackson does not end her story with a

resolution to the plot, but she illustrates the irony she sees in the world through a creative ironical

setting. Indeed, the setting expresses The Lottery’s theme of a hidden reality beneath the surface of

everyday lives.

Symbolism And Setting In The Lottery “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short

story that without the symbolism of its characters, would amount to little more than an odd tale about a stoning. However, because of what each character represents and the way the setting helps to magnify

those representations, it becomes a short story that is anything but short of meaning. The first character is probably the most obviously symbolic character of the story. Every word that leaves Old Man Warner’s

Mouth reeks of tradition. He never stops criticizing new ideas about the lottery, the way it is run, or

complaining about how things have changed for the worst, etc., etc. When Mr. Adams tells him that the residents of a neighboring village are considering doing away with the lottery, he says they are “a pack of

crazy fools.” After the Hutchinson family draws for the second time and he can hear people whisper about who they hope drew the spot, he is quick to point out ”It’s not the way it used to be, people aren’t

the way they used to be.” He probably reminds most readers of an older person he or she once knew

always saying, “Well in my day we did things differently…..” and “ What is wrong with kids these days? Why when I was a kid if I did that…….” He is clinging to tradition, even some that are no longer

observed, and totally unwilling to let go of the ones that are still practiced, in spite of how ludicrous they might be. It has always been done that way before so why change things now? In “the Lottery,” old Man

Warner symbolizes everything that is wrong with tradition and really forces a person to consider some of the ridiculous things that we as members of society have done and or continue to do “because it has

always been done that way.” Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves both symbolize authority and how it can be

used to coerce the masses. While neither Mr. Graves nor Mr. Summers are tyrannical, awe inspiring, or otherwise persuasive leaders, the townspeople follow them. It is very probable that if the two of them

proclaimed there would no longer be a lottery it would stop but they insist with the tradition. Unfortunately as is the case so often in reality, people follow them blindly, they are leaders in the

community, they must know what they are doing right? When people fail to question their leadership, in

reality, just as in “The Lottery,” terrible things happen. The other characters symbolize more the faults of individual humans rather than those of whole societies. The Hutchinson Family is both symbolic of

internal faults that all humans have, such as cowardice and indifference. Bill Hutchinson is apparently so scared of saying no to authority that he will not take the necessary steps to protect his family. As a

matter of fact he aids them in the death of his wife by forcing her to show the black spot. When a man is willing not just to stand by and watch as his wife is stoned to death but actually force her into it, there is

something truly wrong. However in a sense the entire town is filled with cowards. One might say, they

seemed brave, all willing to go to the lottery and risk their lives for this ritual. In reality though they are cowards for not standing up and saying, “This year my family will not be participating in the lottery.” If

Bill Hutchinson had refused to attend, then maybe Mr. Adams would have said well if he is not going neither am I. All of a sudden, no one goes to the lottery and there is no way Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves

and Old Man Warner can force everyone to participate. Now because of the courage of one man there is

no more lottery. Mrs. Hutchinson is indifferent to the fact that someone is going to die a violent death until it becomes apparent that that someone will be a member of her family or possibly herself. She is

making jokes about the 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 traditions, cowardice, and indifference are

taking place right here right now in our own backyards. The setting makes the ending so powerful because the reader cannot remove the unpleasantness of the story by saying “That stuff doesn’t happen

here.” The combination of setting, symbolic characters and a surprisingly twisted ending make “The

Lottery” by Shirley Jackson a truly powerful and thought provoking story.

The Lottery Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

The Lottery The lottery is like an 800-pound gorilla of symbols in this story. It's in the title, for Pete's

sake. Where do we even begin? Well, let's start with the lottery as a way of upsetting reader expectations. After all, communities across America practice different annual traditions – Easter egg

hunts (with origins in early fertility rituals), Christmas tree decorating (check out those patron trees of the Germanic tribes), or July 4th fireworks (well, that one just celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of

Independence ...). Anyway, our point is that we're all comfortable with yearly rituals – and it's often not

widely known how these celebrations began. See how tradition obscures the history of public ritual? Anyway, back to the lottery. So, we associate lotteries with good things (winning cash prizes!) and

annual celebrations also seem pleasant. We talk about this in "What's Up With the Title?" so we'll just say here that, like the blooming, cheerful village itself, there's nothing in the lottery that immediately

suggests anything is wrong with this set-up. The lottery is, in fact, operating as an allegory of village life

itself: at first, it seems harmless, but then we start to wonder what's going on with all the subdued smiles and piles of stones.

So, if the lottery is an allegory of the community, its rules and proceedings must in some way correspond to real-life elements of village society; we mean, if Jackson was willing meticulously to give so many of

the characters heavily symbolic names, we have to assume that she's equally careful in developing the lottery as an allegory.

One thing that's striking is the lottery's initial breakdown of the village's residents into household. The

head of the family draws for the household, and the whole group has to abide by what the head draws. But – and here's where it gets really clever – isn't it true that we are all usually broken down by

household? The household, whether it be one of parents and children, couples, or friends, is the first unit of social interaction. What's more, we often do have to abide by the conditions of our households as a

whole – the metaphorical strips of paper that our parents draw.

Some of us get lucky in the draw, and some don't. As soon as we show up in that town square, as soon as we consent to participate in society at large, we leave ourselves open to the chance of catastrophic

failure. Even rich Joe Summers and powerful Harry Graves have to draw from the box: we're all subject to the vagaries of luck that the lottery represents. And all of us, eventually, are going to die (although,

we can only hope, not by stoning). So the lottery thematizes not only life's chances, but also the sudden, unexpected nature of death.

About this whole household thing – didn't it seem kind of weird that it was always the man of the house

doing the drawing? When it wasn't the man of the house, as in the Dunbar and Watson families, circumstances were curious enough that the villagers feel called upon to comment, finding out that Mr.

Dunbar's home with a broken leg, and the Watson boy is old enough to draw for his mother now that his father is mysteriously absent. The norm we see here is that each man is literally choosing not only his

fate, but also the fate of his entire family. Women have no agency in this situation, which reflects the

overall patriarchal nature of the traditional values of this village society. Still, we have to note that, while it's only men who get to do the active choosing, their wives are

absolutely willing participants in the event. So even though tradition is keeping them in places of diminished power, they seem to support their inferior status as traditional.

The origins of the lottery are murky; even Old Man Warner doesn't know when it began. His association

of the lottery with the abundance of corn suggests that it began as some kind of overt human sacrifice, in which the murder of one person somehow equaled plentiful corn harvests. Now, though, "the original

paraphernalia for the lottery [has] been lost long ago" (5) and there is widespread forgetfulness on the old preparations for the lottery (there used to be a song, a speech, a ritual salute?). But how can you

stop something when you don't know how it started? Without a sense of the lottery's history, it's become a totally hollow act, one to be completed in time "for noon dinner" (1).

The loss of the lottery's origins poses a really profound ethical question: obviously, it wouldn't be a good

thing if the lottery began as human sacrifice, but at least then there would be a logic to it. In this story,

we see Mr. Graves helping Davy Hutchinson select a strip of paper from the black box, we see the boys

collecting their stones: they are being trained to see the lottery as naturally as their parents do. They are, in fact, being instructed in savagery. The lottery has become completely self-perpetuating; it no longer

needs an explanation (see our "Character Analysis" on Old Man Warner for further analysis of this point.) Perhaps the boys take to the lottery with such enthusiasm because it is mankind's essential nature to be

brutal, but the lottery is providing institutional recognition for murder that might not otherwise be

allowed. These kids are being taught by their society to kill. Again, we can't ignore the proximity of the story's publication to World War II. We don't want to press this point too hard, but we do think that it is

legitimate to wonder whether the experience of mass violence on that scale might not be driving Jackson's commentary on the ways that society breeds violence into every new generation of young

people. For more on this topic, see our character analysis of "The Boys."

The Black Box The black box is a physical manifestation of the villagers' connection to tradition;

Jackson is pretty explicit on this point, when the subject of replacing the box comes up: "No one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box" (5). They believe that this box may,

in part, be made up of shards of the previous boxes, back to the original Black Box. We have to admit, this reminded us of the practice of collecting Christian relics, like hair or bone from the bodies of the

saints or pieces of the Cross. We noted, in the Delacroix Family "Character Analysis," how much Jackson

likes to upend Christian iconography in this story. Well, this seems like it may be another example: the villagers use this relic of an earlier time to perpetuate their violent, unmerciful traditions.

Like the lottery as a whole, the black box has no functionality except during this two hours every June: "It had spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year underfoot in the post office and sometimes

it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there" (6). The purpose of the box, like the lottery

itself, has become obscure with the passage of time. It is well worn, but the villagers are reluctant to let it go, again, like the lottery itself. In fact, we don't think it's too far-fetched to say that the villagers'

treatment of the box represents their thinking on the subject of the lottery as a whole: they're a bit terrified by both the box and the lottery, but they're also too frightened (and, perhaps, fascinated), to

drop either one.

The Three-Legged Stool Critic Helen Nebeker argues that the three legs of the stool are like the three

aspects of the Christian Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit); the use of the stool to support the black box thus represents the manipulation of religion to support collective violence. It is true

that this story is so short that everything in it seems like it must be symbolic of something. Another possibility is that this doesn't have to be the Christian Trinity at all; there are trinities all of the place in

various religious traditions, like the three Norse Fates, or the Three Graces in Greek myth. The use of this

three-legged stool may serve to underline more generally the ritualistic significance of the lottery as a holdover from generic Ye Olden Days.

The Stones Well, as the narrator observes, "[the villagers] still [remember] to use the stones" (76). Not only is stoning a particularly horrifying way to imagine dying, it's also, always, a crowd-generated

death. In other words, stones allow everyone in the village to participate freely in the ritual, from the youngest children to Old Man Warner. Stones are also significant as murder weapons because the first

human tools were made of stone; this lottery really does seem to have its ancestors in the earliest type of violent human ritual. What's more, stoning comes up specifically in the religious texts of all three of

the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. So it's not just an early form of murder;

stoning has a strong religious association with community punishment of abomination; in other words, stoning is the classic means for expelling an outsider to reinforce group beliefs.

The Lottery Setting

A small village in the summer, indeterminate year The anonymity of the village signals its

universality. It adds to the horror of the story that we can imagine the lottery taking place anywhere, in any small town we might know. We can't confine the violence of the lottery to a specific area or a certain

set of people: Jackson's critique is America-wide. The references to other towns that hold lotteries

contribute to our sense that Jackson isn't talking about any one community, but is instead critiquing society as a whole.

As for the lottery's temporal setting – a day in mid-summer – it indicates a period of unconstrained growth and reckless abandon. The children are testing the freedoms of summer. The flowers are

"blossoming profusely." The grass is "richly green." We might read the village's ritual murder as its

method of pruning excessive growth. Many critics point out that the summer solstice was a popular time of pre-historic ritual, and that the lottery's timing is a subtle gesture to earlier primitive rituals.

Genre and Date of Publication .“The Lottery” is a short story in the horror genre. Critics generally

consider it one of the finest American short stories of the twentieth century. "The Lottery" was published

on June 26, 1948, in The New Yorker, a literary magazine. Its shocking ending horrified readers, who deluged the magazine with letters of complaint. Many readers cancelled their subscription to the

magazine. After the hubbub subsided, critics realized what an outstanding short story it was. Today, the story appears in numerous anthologies for high school and college students.

Setting The action takes place on a sunny day between 10 and 12 on June 27 in a New England village.

Characters

Bobby Martin: Boy who loads his pockets with stones that he will use after townspeople draw lottery numbers. He also helps build a pile of stones. Baxter Martin: Older brother of Bobby Martin. Harry Jones: Boy who joins Bobby Martin in building the pile of stones. Dickie Delacroix: Boy who joins Bobby Martin and Harry Jones in building the pile of stones. Mr. Martin: Bobby Martin's father. He operates a grocery store. Mrs. Martin: Wife of Mr. Martin. Joe Summers: Coal dealer who conducts the lottery. He has no children. Mr. Summers's Wife: Shrewish woman. Mr. Graves: Postmaster. He assists Mr. Summers. Mrs. Graves: Wife of the postmaster. Old Man Warner: Oldest man in town. Tessie Hutchinson: Woman who arrives late for the lottery. Bill Hutchinson: Husband of Mrs. Hutchinson. Bill Jr., Nancy, Little Dave: Children of Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson. School Friends of Nancy Hutchinson Eva: Daughter of Bill and Tessie Hutchinson. Don: Eva's husband. Mrs. Delacroix: Mother of Dickie Delacroix. Mr. Delacroix: Husband of Mrs. Delacroix. Clyde Dunbar: Village resident who broke his leg and cannot attend the lottery. Janey Dunbar: Wife of Clyde Dunbar. She draws for her husband. Horace Dunbar:Son of Clyde & Janey Dunbar.Being under 16,he isn’t old enough to draw for his father. Another Dunbar: Son of Clyde and Janey Dunbar. Jack Watson: Teenager who draws for himself and his mother. Mrs.Watson: Mother of the Watson boy. Steve Adams: First villager to draw from the lottery box. Mrs. Adams: Wife of Steve Adams. Allen, Anderson, Bentham, Clarak: Residents who draw after Steve Adams. Harburt, Jones, Overdyke, Percy, Zanini: Participants who draw next.

Plot Summary Residents of a New England village gather at 10 a.m. on June 27 in the square

between the post office and the bank for the annual lottery. A bright sun is shining down on fragrant flowers and green lawns while the townspeople–more than 300 of them–await the arrival of Mr. Summers

and the black wooden box from which everyone is to draw a folded slip of paper. Adults chat while children play a game in which they gather stones. Whoever draws the slip of paper with the black dot on

it will receive all of the lottery proceeds.

.......Over the years, the lottery rules and trappings remained the same except for minor changes: Wood chips were replaced by the slips of paper, and ritual chants and salutes preceding the drawing were

eliminated. Other than those modernizations, the same old rules prevailed year after year. .......No one in the square knows why or under what circumstances the lottery began. All they know is

that it is a tradition–a tradition that they are not willing to abandon. .......After Mr. Summers shows up with the black box, he sets it down and prepares for the drawing. A

housewife, Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson, arrives late just then, telling Mrs. Delacroix that she “Clean forgot

what day it was” until she noticed that her children had left her house and remembered it was the day of the lottery.

.......Each of the townspeople draws a folded slip of paper but does not open it until everyone has drawn. When the big moment arrives, it is Tessie Hutchinson who has the paper with the black dot. Everyone

then closes in on her, picks up rocks–the “proceeds” of the lottery–and stones her to death.

. Themes

Theme 1:.The reluctance of people to reject outdated traditions, ideas, rules, laws, and practices. The

villagers continue the lottery year after year because, as one of the villagers would say, “We have always

had a lottery as far back as I can remember. I see no reason to end it.” Put another way, this theme says: “We’ve always done it this way. Why change now?” In real life, defenders of the status quo have

used this philosophy down through the ages and into the present day. For example, it was used in 1776 to retain slavery even though the Declaration of Independence asserted that “all men are created equal.”

Until 1919, it was used to prevent women from voting. Until the 1960's, it was used as an official public policy to allow racial segregation. This philosophy continues to be used today to retain outmoded

practices, discriminatory practices, and sometimes dangerous practices. These practices include the use

of paper ballots in elections, the use of nuclear weapons, capital punishment, abortion, anti-Semitism, racial profiling, and denial of health benefits to the poor.

Theme 2:.Society wrongfully designates scapegoats to bear the sins of the community. According to some interpretations of “The Lottery,” Tessie Hutchinson is stoned to death to appease forces desiring a

sacrificial lamb offered in atonement for the sins of others. The practice of using scapegoats dates back

to ancient times, when Jews ritually burdened a goat with the sins of the people, then threw it over a cliff to rid the community of those sins. Ancient Greeks performed a similar ritual with a human scapegoat,

although the scapegoat apparently did not die. In ancient Rome, an innocent person could take on the sin of a guilty person, thus purifying the latter. Early societies in Central and South America offered

human sacrifices to appease higher powers.

Theme 3:.The wickedness of ordinary people can be just as horrifying as the heinous crime of a serial killer or a sadistic head of state. From time to time, we are surprised to learn that the man, woman, or

even child next door–a quiet, unassuming postal worker, bank clerk, or student–has committed offenses so outrageous that they make national news.

Theme 4:.The unexamined life is not worth living. The truth of this dictum of the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, becomes clear when the townspeople refuse to examine their traditions and

continue to take part in a barbaric ritual.

Theme 5:.Following the crowd can have disastrous consequences. Although some townspeople raise questions about the lottery, they all go along with it in the end. Thus, they become unthinking members

of a herd, forfeiting their individuality and sending Tessie Hutchinson to her death.

A List of Horrors .......Some first-time readers of "The Lottery" tend to cite the ending, describing the

commencement of the stoning of Tessie Hutchinson, as the only disturbing part of the story. But those who have studied the story know otherwise. Consider, for example, the following:

After executing a woman by stoning, the townspeople will go home to eat lunch or go back to

work as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. The first paragraph says, "[T][he whole

lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be

through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner." The tenth paragraph says, "Well, now," Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with, so's we

can go back to work." The villagers do not excuse children from the lottery. Even Nancy Hutchinson, 12, and her little

brother, Davy, must draw from the black box. If a child draws the slip of paper with the black

dot, he or she will be stoned.

Children take part in the stoning. Little Davy is so small that he throws pebbles.

Nancy Hutchinson and her brother Bill laugh when they draw blank lots. Only two people remain to draw, their father and mother. How could Nancy and Bill laugh when they know that their

father or mother will draw the lot with the black spot and die?

Mr. Hutchinson pulls from his wife's hand the slip of paper she has drawn--the losing lot--and

holds it up for all to see. He does not plead for his wife; he does not exhibit any sympathy. Instead, he becomes one of the executioners.

Foreshadowing Shirley Jackson foreshadows the ending when the children gather stones (2nd para): Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his

example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix . . . eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the

other boys.

Point of View .......The point of view is third person, detached and objective.

Climax .......The climax occurs at the end, when the villagers begin to stone Tessie Hutchinson.

Irony Following are examples of irony in the story:

The word lottery suggests that the villagers are going to draw for a prize.

The sunny day suggests that a happy event is about to take place.

When Old Man Warner hears that the north village is considering ending the lottery, he says,

"Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves." (The lottery is as savage and barbaric a ritual as any practiced by cave dwellers.)

Symbols and Portentous Names The lottery: (1) Barbaric tradition or practice. In this category in former times were slavery and human sacrifice practiced by the ancient Maya civilization that inhabitated

modern-day Mexico and other Central American countries. In modern times, abortion, capital punisment, sadomasochism, cage-fighting, and dog-fighting are in this category. (2) Any foolhardy tradition that a

community refuses to give up, such as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. (3) Real-life lotteries

and other forms of gambling that devastate human beings. (4) The risks of daily living, such as driving a car or flying on an airplane,

Black box: (1) Evil or death, suggested by the color of the box. (2) Outdated tradition, suggested by this sentence: "The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but

splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained."

Boys gathering stones and pebbles: Indoctrination or brainwashing that is passed on from one generation to the next.

Old Man Warner: Anyone who warns others not to change; hidebound traditionalist; Luddite; obstructionist.

Mr. Summers: The appearance of normalcy and cheerfulness hiding evil and corruption.

Bill and Davy Hutchinson: Betrayers. The narrator says, "Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the

night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd." As for Davy, he has pebbles ready to throw at his mother. Hutchinson was the name of

an official who lodged a complaint against several women in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692.

Mr. Graves: Bringer of death; any sinister influence. Graves helps Joe Summers prepare the slips of paper that will send one of the residents to his or her grave. Graves also brings the stool on which the black

box rests. Village: That which appears normal and even benevolent but which harbors inner corruption and evil.

Mrs. Delacroix: In French, de means of and la croix means the cross. Mrs. Delacroix, who treats Tessie Hutchinson cordially when the latter arrives for the drawing, later picks up a huge stone to hurl at the

condemned woman. One may say that she "double-crosses" Tessie by helping to "crucify" her.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: All Pieces

Looking for Similarities to find an overarching message.

PLOT

London

Connell

Jackson

Golding

LITERARY TECHNIQUES

London

Connell

Jackson

Golding

THEME

London

Connell

Jackson

Golding

SETTING

London

Connell

Jackson

Golding

CHARACTERS

London

Connell

Jackson

Golding

SHARED MESSAGE

FINDING DIFFERENCES

LONDON CONNELL

JACKSON GOLDING