My Piece Of Mind

My Piece of Mind

In many occasions people have found themselves disappointed when either a book has been turned into a movie or a movie has turned into a book or series of books. They seem to argue that the movies are better than the book or that the book was better than the movie. Of course it all depends on the book and or the movie. Some strongly believe that regardless of the same content one is better than the other. I have just finish reading a very interesting story called the Lottery by Shirley Jackson, then I came across the movie, The Lottery and lets just say that I had very different reactions toward each of them. The story is about a town that has an annual lottery in which each and every citizen takes a piece of paper from a box and whoever has a piece a paper with a black dot on it gets stoned to death. This persons' death is said to be a sacrifice and it is for the good and prosperity of the town. From the two I have to admit that the story was just slightly better than the movie for it leaves more to the imagination and it gave us freedom to decide if this was right or wrong. As for the movie, it tells the audience that it is absolutely wrong without letting the audience decide for themselves.

In the written story there is suspense and there is curiosity to know what the lottery actually is. One finds out what it is towards the end of the story when the people are almost upon Tessie. Throughout the reading I was wondering where this was going to end up and it kept me interested wanting to conclude what was going on. After reading the story I decided that it was wrong that they were stoning people to death, but I was free to decide that it was not our time in which this was taking place therefore it was somehow justified. I also took the freedom to decide that America could not have been a place where these kinds of horrible things could take place and that it could be another country that it is not up to date to people's rights. This story never tells you where this town is and it is mind bothering yet it is a fantastic way to keep someone entertained. In the story you can let yourself go with your imagination, makes you wonder if what you are reading could affect you in any way. It is by far more than what I can say about the movie.

The movie was good but no more than the story, and it is because it does not provide the freedom that the story provides. The movie takes off by adding curiosity but then it gives you specifics of our world in terms of whatever takes place in the end of the movie happened here and then we start making connections to what is real and what is not. For example, now that we know the lottery takes place here in America then the stoning can be classified as inhumane and unjustified. One can also think that because it is taking pace here in America that it absolutely non-sense to think it could have happened. There is no way that these kinds of actions are justified for they are