The Lottery in Babylon
E622059
"The Lottery in Babylon" is a metaphysical short story by Jorge Luis Borges that explores a fictional society governed entirely by a mysterious, all-encompassing lottery system.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| La lotería en Babilonia | 1 |
| The Lottery in Babylon canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6827610 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Lottery in Babylon Context triple: [Ficciones, hasPart, The Lottery in Babylon]
-
A.
The Lottery
"The Lottery" is a renowned 1948 short story by Shirley Jackson that chillingly depicts a small town's violent adherence to a brutal annual ritual, serving as a powerful critique of conformity and tradition.
-
B.
The Babylonian Story
The Babylonian Story is a segment or episode within the 1916 silent film "Intolerance," depicting ancient Babylonian civilization and its dramatic downfall.
-
C.
Town of Babylon
The Town of Babylon is a suburban municipality in southwestern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, known for its coastal communities, beaches, and portions of Fire Island under its jurisdiction.
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D.
Die Königliche Burg von Babylon
Die Königliche Burg von Babylon is a scholarly monograph by archaeologist Robert Koldewey that presents his excavations and architectural reconstruction of the royal palace complex in ancient Babylon.
-
E.
The Day of Atonement (short story)
"The Day of Atonement" is a short story by Samson Raphaelson that inspired the landmark 1927 film "The Jazz Singer," exploring themes of Jewish identity, tradition, and assimilation in America.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Lottery in Babylon Target entity description: "The Lottery in Babylon" is a metaphysical short story by Jorge Luis Borges that explores a fictional society governed entirely by a mysterious, all-encompassing lottery system.
-
A.
The Lottery
"The Lottery" is a renowned 1948 short story by Shirley Jackson that chillingly depicts a small town's violent adherence to a brutal annual ritual, serving as a powerful critique of conformity and tradition.
-
B.
The Babylonian Story
The Babylonian Story is a segment or episode within the 1916 silent film "Intolerance," depicting ancient Babylonian civilization and its dramatic downfall.
-
C.
Town of Babylon
The Town of Babylon is a suburban municipality in southwestern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, known for its coastal communities, beaches, and portions of Fire Island under its jurisdiction.
-
D.
Die Königliche Burg von Babylon
Die Königliche Burg von Babylon is a scholarly monograph by archaeologist Robert Koldewey that presents his excavations and architectural reconstruction of the royal palace complex in ancient Babylon.
-
E.
The Day of Atonement (short story)
"The Day of Atonement" is a short story by Samson Raphaelson that inspired the landmark 1927 film "The Jazz Singer," exploring themes of Jewish identity, tradition, and assimilation in America.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
metaphysical fiction
ⓘ
short story ⓘ work of fiction ⓘ |
| author | Jorge Luis Borges ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
arbitrariness of justice
ⓘ
chance ⓘ determinism ⓘ fate ⓘ metaphysics of randomness ⓘ power of institutions ⓘ role of chance in human life ⓘ totalitarian control ⓘ |
| collection | Ficciones ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Argentina ⓘ |
| exploresConcept |
indistinguishability of chance and necessity
ⓘ
mythic representation of social order ⓘ opacity of bureaucratic power ⓘ relationship between game and reality ⓘ |
| featuresOrganization | mysterious Company that runs the lottery ⓘ |
| firstPublicationYear | 1941 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Revista Sur ⓘ |
| genre |
philosophical fiction
ⓘ
short story ⓘ speculative fiction ⓘ |
| hasCharacterType | anonymous citizens of Babylon ⓘ |
| hasInfluenceOn | literature about randomness and systems of control ⓘ |
| hasMotif |
arbitrary punishment and reward
ⓘ
esoteric rules ⓘ labyrinthine systems ⓘ mythic ancient city ⓘ secret organizations ⓘ |
| hasOrganization | the Company ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
erosion of personal responsibility
ⓘ
gambling as social structure ⓘ society governed by lottery ⓘ uncertainty as law ⓘ |
| includedIn | second part of Ficciones ⓘ |
| languageStyle |
concise
ⓘ
philosophical ⓘ |
| literaryMovement |
magic realism
ⓘ
modernism ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person narrator ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | Spanish ⓘ |
| originalTitle |
La lotería en Babilonia
ⓘ
linked to:
The Lottery in Babylon
|
| partOf | Jorge Luis Borges's short fiction corpus ⓘ |
| plotDevice | all-encompassing lottery system ⓘ |
| setting | Babylon ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Lottery in Babylon Description of subject: "The Lottery in Babylon" is a metaphysical short story by Jorge Luis Borges that explores a fictional society governed entirely by a mysterious, all-encompassing lottery system.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: The Lottery in Babylon