Oh, he shouldn't be surprised, he's a Marxist and has nothing but contempt for the bourgeois capitalist press, yet paradoxically he is also somehow an Americanist and a believer in Science and Freedom and History and Reason, and it dismays him to see cruelty politely concealed in data, madness taken for granted and even honored, truth buried away and rotting in all that ex cathedra trivia--my God! something terrible is about to happen, and they have time to editorialize on mustaches, advertise pink cigarettes for weddings, and report on a lost parakeet! Ah, sometimes he just wants to ram the goddamn thing with his head in an all-out frontal attack, wants to destroy all this so-called history so that history can start again. Robert Coover
About This Quote

This quote is taken from the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. The story is about a group of adults who are divided into groups based on the number of black balls that they draw from a large bowl of white balls. As each group draws from the bowl, one member from that group must die. The story ends as the protagonist, Mr.

Summerskill, draws the winning number and is about to be killed. In his last words before being killed, Summerskill tells how he “wants to ram the goddamn thing with his head in an all-out frontal attack,” to “destroy all this so-called history so that history can start again” and “to ram it so hard with his head in an all-out frontal attack ... destroy all this so-called history so that history can start again.” He then says that he has been "living too long" and wishes that "the night would end."

Source: The Public Burning

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