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1. Hello talented tutors, Could you help me with these questions? ...
Hello talented tutors,
Could you help me with these questions?
In all three stories, people find themselves part of a suddenly dangerous game with
unexpected consequences. the stories you found interesting and analyze the victim. Why
was this person targeted? What could they have done, if anything, differently? What is the
irony of what each expected and what happened instead?
1. "The Lottery": example topics: Is it really random? Why have something so random?
How does it serve the community? Is its truly something that anyone could "win," or is it
fixed? Do you agree with Tessie that the "The Lottery" isn't fair? How would she react if she
wasn't the "winner?" Is she sympathetic?
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson full text
"The Lottery" (1948) by Shirley Jackson
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer 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 2th. 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 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

2. 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 conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween
program--by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a
round-faced, 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'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.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open.

3. There were the lists to make up--of heads of families. heads of households in each family.
members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in 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 p3rt 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 back of 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 a-running." 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 good-humoredly 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." Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked,

4. "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
thin#s like "Good fellow, lack." 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 names--heads of families first--and 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
humorlessly 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."

5. "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."
"Seventy-seventh 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

6. 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

7. 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.
2. "King of there Bingo Game": example topics: Is its truly something that anyone could
"win" or is it fixed? What does the story say about the role of luck (both good and bad) and
one's place and role in the world? How much of success truly is luck?
"King of the Bingo Game" by Ralph Ellison full text
The woman in front of him was eating roasted peanuts that smelled so good that he could
barely contain his hunger. He could not even sleep and wished they'd hurry and begin the
bingo game. There, on his right, two fellows were drinking wine out of a bottle wrapped in a
paper bag, and he could hear soft gurgling in the dark. His stomach gave a low, gnawing
growl. "If this was down South," he thought, "all
I'd have to do is lean over and say, 'Lady, gimme a few of those peanuts, please ma'am,' and
she'd pass me the bag and never think nothing of it." Or he could ask the fellows for a drink
in the same way.
Folks down South stuck together that way; they didn't even have to know you. But up here
it was different. Ask somebody for something, and they'd think you were crazy. Well, I ain't
crazy. I'm just broke, 'cause I got no birth certificate to get a job, and Laura 'bout to die
cause we got no money for a doctor. But I ain't crazy. And yet a pinpoint of doubt was
focused in his mind as he glanced toward the screen and saw
the hero stealthily entering a dark room and sending the beam of a flashlight along a wall of
bookcases. This is where he finds the trapdoor, he remembered. The man would pass
abruptly through the wall and find the girl tied to a bed, her legs and arms spread wide, and
her clothing torn to rags. He laughed softly to himself. He had seen the picture three times,
and this was one of the best scenes.
On his right the fellow whispered wide-eyed to his companion, "Man, look a-yonder!"
"Damn!"
"Wouldn't I like to have her tied up like that.
"Hey! That fool's letting her loose!"
"Aw, man, he loves her."
"Love or no love!"
The man moved impatiently beside him, and he tried to involve himself in the scene. But
Laura was on his mind. Tiring quickly of watching the picture he looked back to where the
white beam filtered from the projection room above the balcony. It started small and grew
large, specks of dust dancing in its whiteness as it reached the screen. It was strange how
the beam always landed right on the screen and didn't mess up and fall somewhere else. But

8. they had it all fixed. Everything was fixed. Now suppose
when they showed that girl with her dress torn the girl started taking off the rest of her
clothes, and when the guy came in he didn't untie her but kept her there and went to taking
off his own clothes? That would be something to see. If a picture got out of hand like that
those guys up there would go nuts. Yeah, and there'd be so many folks in here you couldn't
find a seat for nine months! A strange sensation played over
his skin. He shuddered. Yesterday he's seen a bedbug on a woman's neck as they walked out
into the bright street. But exploring his thigh through a hole in his pocket he found only
goose pimples and old scars.
The bottle gurgled again. He closed his eyes. Now a dreamy music was accompanying the
film and train whistles were sounding in the distance, and he was a boy again walking along
a railroad trestle down South, and seeing the train coming, and running back as fast as he
could go, and hearing the whistle blowing, and getting off the trestle to solid ground just in
time, with the earth trembling beneath his feet,
and feeling relieved as he ran down the cinder-strewn embankment onto the highway, and
looking back and seeing with terror that the train had left the track and was following him
right down the middle of the street, and all the white people laughing as he ran screaming. . .
"Wake up there, buddy! What the hell do you mean hollering like that? Can't you see we
trying to enjoy this here picture?"
He started at the man with gratitude.
"I'm sorry, old man," he said. "I musta been dreaming."
"Well, here, have a drink. And don't be making no noise like that, damn!"
His hands trembled as he tilted his head. It was not wine, but whiskey. Cold rye whiskey. He
took a deep swoller, decided it was better not to take another, and handed the bottle back to
its owner.
"Thanks, old man," he said.
Now he felt the cold whiskey breaking a warm path straight through the middle of him,
growing hotter and sharper as it moved. He had not eaten all day, and it made him light-
headed. The smell of the peanuts stabbed him like a knife, and he got up and found a seat in
the middle aisle. But no sooner did he sit than he saw a row of intense-faced young girls,
and got up again, thinking, "You chicks musta been Lindy-hopping somewhere." He found a
seat several rows ahead as the lights came on, and he saw the screen disappear behind a
heavy red and gold curtain; then the curtain rising, and the man with the microphone and a
uniformed attendant coming on the stage.
He felt for his bingo cards, smiling. The guy at the door wouldn't like it if he knew about his
having five cards. Well, not everyone played the bingo game; and even with five cards he
didn't have much of a chance. For Laura, though, he had to have faith. He studied the cards,
each with its different numerals, punching the free center hole in each and spreading them
neatly across his lap; and when the lights faded he sat slouched in his seat so that he could
look from his cards to the bingo wheel with but a quick shifting of his eyes.
Ahead, at the end of the darkness, the man with the microphone was pressing a button
attached to a long cord and spinning the bingo wheel and calling out the number each time
the wheel came to rest. And each time the voice rang out his finger raced over the cards for

9. the number. With five cards he had tomove fast. He became nervous; there were too many
cards, and the man went too fast with his grating
voice. Perhaps he should just select one and throw the others away. But he was afraid. He
became warm. Wonder how much Laura's doctor would cost? Damn that, watch the cards!
And with despair he heard the man call three in a row which he missed on all five cards.
This way he'd never win.
When he saw the row of holes punched across the third card, he sat paralyzed and heard the
man call three more numbers before he stumbled forward, screaming,
"Bingo! Bingo!"
"Let that fool up there," someone called.
"Get up there, man!"
He stumbled down the aisle and up the steps to the stage into a light so sharp and bright
that for a moment it blinded him, and he felt that he had moved into the spell of some
strange, mysterious power.
Yet it was as familiar as the sun, and he knew it was the perfectly familiar bingo.
The man with the microphone was saying something to the audience as he held out his card.
A cold light flashed from the man's finger as the card left his hand. His knees trembled. The
man stepped closer checking the card against the numbers chalked on the board. Suppose
he had made a mistake? The pomade on the man's hair made him feel faint, and he backed
away. But the man was checking the card
over the microphone now, and he had to stay. He stood tense, listening.
"Under the 0, forty-four," the man chanted. 'Under the I, seven. Under the G. three. Under
the B,
ninety-six. Under the N, thirteen!"
His breath came easier as the man smiled at the audience.
"Yessir, ladies and gentlemen, he's one of the chosen people!"
The audience rippled with laughter and applause.
"Step right up to the front of the stage."
He moved slowly forward, wishing that the light was not so bright.
"To win tonight's jackpot of $36.90 the wheel must stop between the double zero,
understand?"
He nodded, knowing the ritual from the many days and nights he had watched the winners
march across the stage to press the button that controlled the spinning wheel and receive
the prizes. And now he followed the instructions as though he'd crossed the slippery stage a
million prize-winning times.
The man was making some kind of a joke, and he nodded vacantly. So tense had he become
that he felt a sudden desire to cry and shook it away.
He felt vaguely that his whole life was determined by the bingo wheel; not only that which
would happen now that he was at last before it, but all that had gone
before, since his birth, and his mother's birth and the birth of his father. It had always been
there, even though he had not been aware of it, handing out the unlucky cards and numbers
of his days. The feeling persisted, and he started quickly away. I better get down from here
before I make a fool of myself, he thought.

10. "Here, boy," the man called. "You haven't started yet."
Someone laughed as he went hesitantly back.
"Are you all reet?"
He grinned at the man's jive talk, but no words would come, and he knew it was not a
convincing grin.
For suddenly he knew that he stood on the slippery brink of some terrible embarrassment.
"Where you from boy?" the man asked.
"Down South."
"He's from down South, ladies and gentlemen," the man said. "Where from? Speak right into
the mike."
"Rocky Mont," he said. "Rock' Mont. North Car'lina."
"So you decided to come down off that mountain to the U.S.," the man laughed. He felt that
the man was making a fool of him, but then something cold was placed in his hand, and the
lights were no longer behind him.
Standing before the wheel he felt alone, but that was somehow right, and he remembered
his plan. He would give the wheel a short quick twirl. Just a touch of the button. He had
watched it many times, and always it came close to double zero when it was short and
quick. He steeled himself; the fear had left,
and he felt a profound sense of promise, as though he were about to be repaid for all the
things he'd suffered all his life. Trembling, he pressed the button. There was a whirl of
lights, and in a second he realized with finality that though he wanted to, he could not stop.
It was as though he held a high-powered line in his naked hand. His nerves tightened. As the
wheel increased its speed it seemed to draw him more and more into its power, as though it
held his fate; and with it came a deep need to
submit, to whirl, to lose himself in its swirl of color. He could not stop it now he knew. So let
it be.
The button rested snugly in his palm where the man had placed it. And now he became
aware of the man beside him, advising him through the microphone, while behind the
shadowy audience hummed with noisy voices. He shifted his feet. There was still that
feeling of helplessness within him, making part of him desire to turn back, even now that
the jackpot was right in his hand. He squeezed the button until his fist
ached. Then, like the sudden shriek of a subway whistle, a doubt tore through his head.
Suppose he did not spin the wheel long enough? What could he do, and how could he tell?
And then he knew, even as he wondered, that as long as he pressed the button, he could
control the jackpot. He and only he could determine whether or not it was to be his. Not
even the man with the microphone could do anything about it now. He felt drunk. Then, as
though he had come down from a high hill into a valley of people,
he heard the audience yelling.
"Come down from there, you jerk!"
"Let somebody else have a chance . . ."
"Ole Jack thinks he done found the end of the rainbow..."
The last voice was not unfriendly, and he turned and smiled dreamily into the yelling
mouths. Then he turned his back squarely on them.

11. "Don't take too long, boy," a voice said.
He nodded. They were yelling behind him. Those folks did not understand what had
happened to him.
They had been playing the bingo game day in and night for years, trying to win rent money
or hamburger change. But not one of those wise guys had discovered this wonderful thing.
He watched the wheel whirling past the numbers and experienced a burst of exaltation:
This is God! This is the really truly God!
He said it aloud, "This is God!"
He said it with such absolute conviction that he feared he would fall fainting into the
footlights. But the crowd yelled so loud that they could not hear. These fools, he thought. I'm
here trying to tell them the most wonderful secret in the world, and they're yelling like they
gone crazy. A hand fell upon his shoulder.
"You'll have to make a choice now, boy. You've taken too long."
He brushed the hand violently away.
"Leave me alone, man. I know what I'm doing!"
The man looked surprised and held on to the microphone for support. And because he did
not wish to hurt the man's feelings he smiled, realizing with a sudden pang that there was
no way of explaining to the man just why he had to stand there pressing the button forever.
"Come here," he called tiredly.
The man approached, rolling the heavy microphone across the stage.
"Anybody can play this bingo game, right?" he said.
"Sure, but . ."
He smiled, feeling inclined to be patient with this slick looking white man with his blue
sport shirt and his sharp gabardine suit.
"That's what I thought," he said. "Anybody can win the jackpot as long as they get the lucky
number, right?"
"That's the rule, but after all . ."
"That's what I thought," he said. "And the big prize goes to the man who knows how to win
it?"
The man nodded speechlessly.
"Well then, go on over there and watch me win like I want to. I ain't going to hurt nobody,"
he said,
"and I'll show you how to win. I mean to show the whole world how it's got to be done."
And because he understood, he smiled again to let the man know that he held nothing
against him for being white and impatient. Then he refused to see the man any longer and
stood pressing the button, the voices of the crowd reaching him like sounds in distant
streets. Let them yell. All the Negroes down there were just ashamed because he was black
like them. He smiled inwardly, knowing how it was. Most of
the time he was ashamed of what Negroes did himself. Well, let them be ashamed for
something this time. Like him. He was like a long thin black wire that was being stretched
and wound upon the bingo wheel; wound until he wanted to scream; wound, but this time
himself controlling the winding and the sadness and the shame, and because he did, Laura
would be all right. Suddenly the lights flickered. He

12. staggered backwards. Had something gone wrong? All this noise. Didn't they know that
although he controlled the wheel, it also controlled him, and unless he pressed the button
forever and forever and ever it would stop, leaving him high and dry, dry and high on this
hard high slippery hill and Laura dead?
There was only one chance; he had to do whatever the wheel demanded. And gripping the
button in despair, he discovered with surprise that it imparted a nervous energy. His spine
tingled. He felt a certain power.
Now he faced the raging crowd with defiance, its screams penetrating his eardrums like
trumpets shrieking from a jukebox. The vague faces glowing in the bingo lights gave him a
sense of himself that he had never known before. He was running the show, by God! They
had to read to him, for he was their luck. This is me, he thought. Let the bastards yell. Then
someone was laughing inside him, and he realized
that somehow he had forgotten his own name. It was a sad, lost feeling to lose your name,
and a crazy thing to do. That name had been given him by the white man who had owned
his grandfather a long time ago down South. But maybe those wise guys knew his name.
"Who am I?" he screamed.
"Hurry up and bingo, you jerk!"
They didn't know either, he thought sadly. They didn't even know their own names, they
were all poor nameless bastards. Well, he didn't need that old name; he was reborn. For as
long as he pressed the button he was The-man-who-pressed-the-button-who-held-the-
prize-who-was-the-King-of-Bingo.
That was the way it was, and he'd have to press the button even if nobody understood, even
though
Laura did not understand.
"Live!" he shouted.
The audience quieted like the dying of a huge fan.
"Live, Laura, baby. I got holt of it now, sugar. Live!"
He screamed it, tears streaming down his face. "I got nobody but you!"
The screams tore from his very guts. He felt as though the rush of blood to his head would
burst out in baseball seams of small red droplets, like a head beaten by police clubs.
Bending over he saw a trickle of blood splashing the toe of his shoe. With his free hand he
searched his head. It was his nose. God, suppose something has gone wrong? He felt that the
whole audience had somehow entered him and was
stamping its feet in his stomach and he was unable to throw them out. They wanted the
prize, that was it.
They wanted the secret for themselves. But they'd never get it; he would keep the bingo
wheel whirling forever, and Laura would be safe in the wheel. But would she? It had to be,
because if she were not safe the wheel would cease to turn; it could not go on. He had to get
away, vomit all, and his mind formed an image of himself running with Laura in his arms
down the tracks of the subway just ahead of an A train,
running desperately vomit with people screaming for him to come out but knowing no way
of leaving the tracks because to stop would bring the train crushing down upon him and to
attempt to leave across the other tracks would mean to run into a hot third rail as high as

13. his waist which threw blue sparks that blinded his eyes until he could hardly see.
He heard singing and the audience was clapping its hands.
Shoot the liquor to him, Jim, boy!
Clap-clap-clap
Well a-calla the cop
He's blowing his top!
Shoot the liquor to him, Jim, boy!
Bitter anger grew within him at the singing. They think I'm crazy. Well let 'em laugh. I'll do
what I got to do.
He was standing in an attitude of intense listening when he saw that they were watching
something on the stage behind him. He felt weak. But when he turned he saw no one. If only
his thumb did not ache so.
Now they were applauding. And for a moment he thought that the wheel had stopped. But
that was impossible, his thumb still pressed the button. Then he saw them. Two men in
uniform beckoned from the end of the stage. They were coming toward him, walking in step,
slowly, like a tap-dance team returning for a third encore. But their shoulders shot forward,
and he backed away, looking wildly about. There
was nothing to fight them with. He had only the long black cord which led to a plug
somewhere back stage, and he couldn't use that because it operated the bingo wheel. He
backed slowly, fixing the men with his eyes as his lips stretched over his teeth in a tight,
fixed grin; moved toward the end of the stage and realizing that he couldn't go much
further, for suddenly the cord became taut and he couldn't afford to break the cord. But he
had to do something. The audience was howling. Suddenly he stopped dead, seeing the men
halt, their legs lifted as in an interrupted step of a slow-motion dance. There was nothing to
do but run in the other direction and he dashed forward, slipping and sliding. The men fell
back,
surprised. He struck out violently going past.
"Grab him!"
He ran, but all too quickly the cord tightened, resistingly, and he turned and ran back again.
This time he slipped them, and discovered by running in a circle before the wheel he could
keep the cord from tightening. But this way he had to flail his arms to keep the men away.
Why couldn't they leave a man alone? He ran, circling.
"Ring down the curtain," someone yelled. But they couldn't do that. If they did the wheel
flashing from the projection room would be cut off. But they had him before he could tell
them so, trying to pry open his fist, and he was wrestling and trying to bring his knees into
the fight and holding on to the button, for it was his life. And now he was down, seeing a foot
coming down, crushing his wrist cruelly, down, as he
saw the wheel whirling serenely above.
"I can't give it up," he screamed. Then quietly, in a confidential tone, "Boys, I really can't give
it up."
It landed hard against his head. And in the blank moment they had it away from him,
completely now.
He fought them trying to pull him up from the stage as he watched the wheel spin slowly to

14. a stop.
Without surprise he saw it rest at double-zero.
"You see," he pointed bitterly.
"Sure, boy, sure, it's O.K.," one of the men said smiling.
And seeing the man bow his head to someone he could not see, he felt very, very happy; he
would receive what all the winners received.
But as he warmed in the justice of the man's tight smile he did not see the man's slow wink,
nor see the bow-legged man behind him step clear of the swiftly descending curtain and set
himself for a blow. He only felt the dull pain exploding in his skull, and he knew even as it
slipped out of him that his luck had run out on the stage.
1 "The Open Window": What do you think of the niece? Would you have reacted the same
or differently than Mr. Nuttel?
Saki's "The Open Window"
"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of
fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me.
ramton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the
niece of the moment. Privately he doubted whether these visits on total strangers would do
much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural
retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves
will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the
people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the
letters of introduction, came into the nice division.
"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they
had had sufficient silent communion
"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, you know, some four years ago,
and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young
lady.
"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs.
Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room
seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your
sister's time."
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out
of place.
"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the
niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything
to do with the tragedy?"
"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young

15. brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to
their favourite snipe- shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of
bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other
years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was
the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became
falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and
the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they
used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear
aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat
over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he
always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know,sometimes on
still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through
that window - "
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the
room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said. "She has been very interesting," said
Framton.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and
brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've
been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets.
So like you men-folk, isn't it?"
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for
duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only
partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his
hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly
straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate
coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and
avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who
laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance
acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause
and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then
she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were
muddy up to the eyes!"
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey
sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with
dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat
and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window;
they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a
white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.

16. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I
said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front
gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to
run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the
window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"
"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his
illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One
would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He
was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah
dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and
grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone their nerve."
Romance at short notice was her specialty.
Thank you for your help.