This question is missing the options. I've found the complete question online. It is the following:
Why might Shirley Jackson’s short story "The Lottery" have been unpopular with so many readers when it was first published in the New Yorker in 1948? Select all answers that apply.
1) the use of an idyllic rural setting in a small village juxtaposed with ruthless violence was unsettling to many people.
2) many people believed that Shirley Jackson was not a good writer.
3) the notion that violence and brutality are permissible if they are part of a long-standing tradition was unsettling and even offensive to many people.
4) most people in New York were not fans of short stories as they preferred to read novels.
5) the idea that a woman could actually be killed was unbelievable and outrageous in 1948.
Since the instructions tell us to choose all answers that apply, I believe we should go with:
1) the use of an idyllic rural setting in a small village juxtaposed with ruthless violence was unsettling to many people.
3) the notion that violence and brutality are permissible if they are part of a long-standing tradition was unsettling and even offensive to many people.
Explanation:
The short story "The Lottery", by Shirley Jackson, was not well received by the public back in 1948, when it was first published.
At first, the author describes the peaceful and small rural village where a lottery is about to take place. The villagers all know one another; they all seem to be good friends, talking cordially and politely. Readers are not given any hints about the violence that will ensue with the exception of one: the children are collecting and making a pile of stones. Still, this is not enough for most readers to assume the stones will have such an important role in connection to the result of the lottery. They will be used to kill the person whose name is drawn.
Throughout the story and, again, without revealing much about what will happen, the author makes it very clear that this lottery is a tradition in the village. There seems to be some sort of superstition behind it that is never fully explained. Because it has been done for such a long time, the villagers seem to accept it as something unchangeable.
Therefore, we can see how both the setting and tradition in association with the violence and brutality of stoning someone to death might have been utterly upsetting for readers.
