Question

Read these excerpts from "The Lottery" and answer the question.

From paragraph 1:
... 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 villagers to get home for noon dinner.
From paragraph 10:
"Well, now." Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with, so we can go back to
work.
The underlined phrases set an ironic tone since they imply that
this June the lottery will be held in a less formal setting
this year's drawing of names will be held in a less relaxed atmosphere
the current lottery will be less beneficial to everyone compared to last year's
the community's raffling of names will cause little interruption in its daily life

Answer 1

The underlined phrases set an ironic tone since they imply that:

D. the community's raffling of names will cause little interruption in its daily life.

Step-by-step explanation:

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was an American writer whose horror and mystery stories are still very successful. Among them is "The Lottery", a short story in which the community of a rural village carries out a lottery every year in order to decide who will be stoned to death.

That is right, however scary it may seem: the people draw pieces of paper, and the one to get the dotted piece in the end is killed by the other villagers. Dying and killing should be a great deal, a terrible thing, right? Yet, as we can see in the phrases in the question, they were not that great or terrible. The villagers are actually kind of in a hurry to get it all over with as soon as possible, so that they can go back to work. How ironic is it that something that is a matter of life and death should be done so frivolously? They kill, and then move on with their lives, going back home in time for lunch.