Were you surprised by the ending of the story? If not, at what point did you know what was going to happen? How does Jackson start to foreshadow the ending in paragraphs 2 and 3? Conversely, how does Jackson lull us into thinking that this is just an ordinary story with an ordinary town?
You have a lot of questions here. I first read this in high school many years ago. To be honest, I was surprised. I was young and missed pretty much all the foreshadowing and irony. Actually I just wanted class to end. I only clued in something bad was going to happen when Mr. Hutchinson unfolded his black dot. The pile of stones is full of uneasy foreshadowing,
They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.
Jackson lulls us in by her very matter of fact tone and imagery that bellies the sinister subtext of the gathering.
