The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Now that all the papers are handed out the men begin to unfold the slips of paper to reveal blank pieces of paper. However one man is left with a paper with a black dot on it. The man unlucky enough to receive this slip of paper is Bill Hutchinson. Promptly Tessie Hutchinson, Bill’s wife, begins to panic saying he didn’t have enough time to pick his paper. Being a reasonable official Mr. Summers allows Hutchinson and each of his family members to reselect a paper. Bill, his two sons, one daughter, and wife Tessie each take a paper and Tessie Hutchinson is left with the paper with the black dot. The townspeople begin to clear a space around Tessie Hutchinson. One of the younger boys from earlier in the story hands her son a stone. While she screams “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” the townspeople begin stoning her, the lottery “winner”.

The next aspect of human nature that the author looks at, and that adds to the effectiveness of the story, is denial. As soon as her husband has drawn the black dot, Mrs. Hutchinson begins to complain that her husband wasn't given enough time to choose. She was content to allow someone else to die, but when it was going to be someone in her family she began to complain about procedure. This is something almost everyone would do. Denial is typical of humans, and the author uses it to make the story more effective.

In Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery," what appears to be an ordinary day in a small town takes an evil turn when a woman is stoned to death after "winning" the town lottery. The lottery in this story reflects an old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order to encourage the growth of crops. But this story is not about the past, for through the actions of the town, Jackson shows us many of the social ills that exist in our own lives.

Andrew Lansley once said “Peer pressure and social norms are powerful influences on behavior, and they are classic excuses.” Most people tend to follow cultural customs because they have grown with them or it has been forced onto them with factors such as parents or their environment. However, is it always right to follow these customs even if they are in fact considered wrong? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a short story about the cultural norms of a small community and its annual lottery ritual; a stoning. Jackson overthrows the story by making the lottery a corrupt occurrence rather than a victory. The reader would probably think that the “winner” of the lottery would be benefited but in this case the victory was not so delightful. In her short story “The Lottery” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

Society today sees the lottery as an easy way to win a ginormous amount of cash just by buying a little slip of paper with a combination of numbers. The irony that Shirley Jackson uses in her short story, The Lottery, is used to the extreme by not only the title being ironic, but also within the story. The lottery is seen as a way to gain cash, but the ironic part of the title is that the reader sees it and thinks that the story will be about someone winning a big prize, yet the winner is sentenced to being stoned to death. Within the story, Shirley Jackson writes about how one member of the community ultimately chooses who wins the lottery. Another ironic thing about someone chooses the winner is that one of the communities sons picked his own father to win the lottery. Linda Wagner-Martin analyzes The Lottery and its irony by writing, “Bringing in the small children as she does, from early in the story (they are gathering stones, piling them up where they will be handy, and participating in the ritual as if it were a kind of play), creates a poignance not only for the death of Tessie the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to the youngest Hutchinson, little Dave. Having the child draw his own slip of paper from the box reinforces the normality of the occasion, and thereby adds to Jackson's irony. It is family members, women and children, and fellow residents who are being killed through this orderly, ritualized process. As Jackson herself once wrote, "I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's

Considering in the story, Tessie accepts the lottery that is taking place within her village. For instance in the story, Mrs. Hutchinson says, "[clean] forgot what day it was […] and they both laughed softly."(Jackson 28-29). In other words, Mrs. Hutchinson acted as though there was no lottery taking place as well as nobody dying momentarily, mainly because she accepted the fact somebody had to die to keep the village business going. Mrs. Hutchinson later on in the story says, "[Mr. Summers did not] give [Bill Hutchinson] time enough to take any paper he wanted." (Jackson 31). The viewer finds Mrs. Hutchinson's reaction very ironic because her attitude shifted because she felt like it is tolerable to let other people die, but when it comes to her being, she feels like she

Mrs. Hutchinson is selfish because she is willing to literally sacrifice and kill her darlings to save herself.

In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson writes about the game lottery, which makes the story very ironic. Unlike all of the other Lottery games, in this traditional version no one wants to be chosen, because that brings them the end of their life. Jackson explains how keeping up with some traditions that are part of people’s life, may not be the best choice to embrace a particular culture. Jackson uses the Lottery as an example to express her idea about the ethical issues such as; violent murder, harming people, forcefully following a tradition, and lying. All of these ethical issues are created by blindly following tradition in “The Lottery.”

In both “The Lottery” and “The Lamb to The Slaughter” they show authority in their own ways. At points in the story and film of “The Lottery” it showed authority through the Black Box which represents the people's control over their own lives, and that of their neighbors lives. And they’ve been doing the “Lottery” for at least seventy-two years, we know this fact because of the old man’s quote stating that it was his seventy second year in the lottery. Also in “The Lottery” Mrs.Hutchinson thought she had the authority to change the way the lottery had been done for at least seventy two years because her husband was chosen and I’m almost positive that anyone would’ve done the same thing if they were at all sane and actually loved their husband.

In the start of the story everyone was gathering for the lottery. Mrs Hutchinson was "late" or she "forgot" that today was the drawing. Tessie aka Mrs. Hutchinson was a housewife to Bill Hutchinson. She is the mother of 3 kids two boys and one girl. She was busy doing the dishes when the lottery was starting.

Tessie Hutchinson, yells, “it is not fair” in the Lottery and gets killed by her own community. However, in the Most Dangerous Game the victim from the beginning ends up being the winner in the hunting game.

The tension and suspense part of this story was well constructed. If you read the story without knowing the ending, you would think that something good would happen. In this case, the ending was terrible for one person but in reality, the way that the ending was chosen was not right. The quote I would choose it “Life’s not fair, is it?” That is an amazing quote to analyze. When I scream at my mom “That’s not fair,” she usually replies “Life’s not fair,” and then I get really mad because that was not the answer I wanted to hear. There are many ways to think about that quote. That quote is very true. In this case, life was not fair. Poor Mrs. Hutchinson, she got “stoned” because of a lottery that they thought would change their lives. Well, the lottery did change some of the townspeople’s lives. Another quote would be “Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.” Since Mrs. Hutchinson was “stoned” by everyone by surprise, including her own family, she and everyone, should think about that every night before they go to sleep. So that they will go to bed knowing that they did the

At the beginning of the passage, Nancy Hutchinson steps up to take her turn in selecting a paper out of the black box. Immediately, it is apparent that the narrator is telling the story in the third-person and has a high level of knowledge about the characters and event taking place. The narrator is knowledgeable but by no means intrusive. The family members, Nancy, Tessie, and Bill, are described as they grab a folded piece of paper containing their fate. Nancy “took” one “daintily”, Tessie “snatched” it “defiantly”, and Bill simply “reached” in and “felt around” before taking the last one (234). The narrator clearly sees how each person is acting and, in turn, feeling about the lottery. There are a few remarks by the townspeople included. However, there is no commentary or opinion from the narrator

They are also not willing to protect their own children for fear of upsetting the other characters in the stories. Mrs. Hutchinson points the finger at her two children because they did not draw from the box. She puts them in harm’s way to save her husband, which is similar to Jig, who is willing to abort her baby to keep her lover. Mrs. Hutchinson never states her true feeling about the lottery until the very end when she is the one picked to be stoned to death. She states “it isn’t fair, it isn’t right” (Jackson. 54). It is the first time she voiced her opinion even though she felt this way all along. Lori Voth states in “Analysis of “The Lottery” “Jackson uses the protagonist, Mrs. Hutchinson, to show an individual consumed by hypocrisy and weakness”. She knew it was inhuman to murder someone but was too weak to say so. Jig also goes along with her lover, not for her own happiness but for his. She states “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway. 200). She agrees to get an abortion even though it is not what she wants but what he wants. She is also too weak to tell him she wants to keep the baby. She is fearful of losing the man. Both women are cowardly.

“Justice is doing for others what we would want done for ourselves,” -Gary Haugen. Gary Haugen is trying to say that seeking justice for others is important because that is what people would want done for themselves. In Jackson Shirley’s short story “The Lottery”, the main character, Tessie Hutchinson, must bring justice to her community. Tessie must try to get her village to realize that their annual lottery is not just. Tessie believes this is not just because they are wrongly murdering people. The villagers do not agree with Tessie and think that because she ‘won’ the lottery she is trying to get out of the death that comes with winning. Tessie realizes in the end that even though what the village is