Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) was a master of psychological horror and domestic unease, crafting stories that expose the darkness beneath everyday life. Her fiction blends the mundane with the macabre, using deceptively simple prose to build tension and deliver shocking revelations. Jackson’s writing style is precise and economical, often employing a detached, almost clinical narration that makes her unsettling themes even more impactful.
A hallmark of Jackson’s work is her ability to subvert expectations. She lulls readers into a false sense of security with ordinary settings—suburban homes, small towns, family dynamics—before revealing hidden horrors. Her narratives frequently rely on slow-burning suspense, subtle foreshadowing, and abrupt, jarring conclusions. In The Lottery, for example, the cheerful small-town atmosphere makes the brutal climax all the more disturbing.
Thematically, Jackson explored conformity, isolation, and the latent cruelty of human nature. Many of her stories critique societal norms, particularly the oppression of women in domestic spaces (The Haunting of Hill House) or the dangers of mob mentality (The Lottery). Her characters often grapple with psychological instability, societal pressure, or supernatural forces that mirror their inner turmoil. Jackson’s influence extends across horror, Gothic fiction, and literary realism.
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" exposes humanity's capacity for violence, often disguised as tradition. Published in The New Yorker in 1948, the story sparked immediate controversy, with outraged readers demanding explanations. Its enduring relevance comes from Jackson's unflinching examination of how societies justify cruelty through tradition.
Characters of The Lottery:
The story features a collective cast of villagers who embody the story's themes of conformity and blind tradition. While no single character dominates the narrative, each serves to reinforce the chilling normalcy of the ritual. Tessie Hutchinson emerges as the protagonist only late in the story, transforming from a cheerful participant to a desperate victim. Her delayed introduction and sudden shift in demeanor—from joking about her tardiness to screaming, "It isn't fair!"—highlight the randomness of persecution and the fragility of social belonging. Bill Hutchinson, Tess's husband, picks the marked slip that threatens his family. He orders his wife to be quiet when she protests against Mr. Summers. Eva Hutchinson is one of the Hutchinson children, but she has married into another family. Thus, she is not required to draw with her parents and other siblings, Bill Jr., Nancy, and Davey, who is only a toddler.
Mr. Summers, the jovial lottery official, represents the banality of evil. His casual demeanor—organizing the event like a town picnic—contrasts grotesquely with the ritual's brutality.
Similarly, Old Man Warner, the staunch traditionalist, embodies resistance to change, scoffing at other villages that abandoned the lottery. His line, "There's always been a lottery," underscores the story's critique of mindless adherence to tradition.
The other villagers function as a unified force, their individual personalities blurred to emphasize mob mentality. Even sympathetic figures like Mrs. Delacroix, who initially comforts Tessie, eagerly turn on her when tradition demands it. Jackson's deliberate lack of deep characterization makes the villagers' collective actions more horrifying—they are not monsters, but ordinary people capable of atrocity.
Summary of The Lottery:
On the morning of June 27th, under a clear summer sky, the villagers of a small rural community begin gathering in their town square between the post office and bank around ten o'clock. The narrator notes how neighboring villages with larger populations require two days to complete their lottery proceedings, but this particular community of about three hundred residents will finish by suppertime.
The children arrive first, their innocent play belying the horror to come. Bobby Martin stuffs his pockets with stones, prompting other boys to follow suit, carefully selecting smooth, round specimens. Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix collaborate to create a growing pile of stones in one corner of the square, while the girls stand apart, observing. The men gradually assemble, exchanging subdued conversation about crops, weather, and taxes - their forced smiles replacing genuine laughter. When the women arrive, they call their reluctant children to order, establishing the first hints of familial tension.
Mr. Summers, the childless coal businessman who organizes all civic events, arrives carrying the lottery's central artifact - a worn black wooden box. Postmaster Mr. Graves follows with a three-legged stool upon which they place the ancient box. The narrator reveals how the original lottery paraphernalia has been lost to time, though this particular box predates living memory. Despite its deteriorating condition and Mr. Summers' annual suggestions for replacement, the box remains - a physical manifestation of the villagers' stubborn traditionalism.
The ritual begins with Mr. Martin and his son Baxter steadying the box as Mr. Summers vigorously mixes the slips of paper inside. The narrator explains how the lottery has evolved over generations - wooden chips replaced by paper slips, formal salutes abandoned for casual conversation. These changes highlight the villagers' selective adherence to tradition, preserving only what suits them while discarding inconvenient elements.
The gathering reaches full attendance when Tessie Hutchinson arrives breathlessly, joking with Mrs. Delacroix about having forgotten the event until noticing her children's absence. This late arrival marks Tessie as different from the start, though no one suspects her significance yet. Mr. Summers conducts a roll call, noting exceptions like the absent Mr. Dunbar (represented by his wife due to his broken leg) before reviewing the familiar rules: each household head will draw a concealed slip until all have chosen.
As the drawing commences, village dynamics emerge through subtle interactions. Mrs. Delacroix and Mrs. Graves exchange gossip while barely listening to the proceedings. When Mr. Adams mentions neighboring villages considering abandoning the lottery, Old Man Warner, participating for his seventy-seventh time, scoffs at such progressive notions, his presence embodying the community's resistance to change.
The tension escalates when Bill Hutchinson's slip reveals the marked paper. Tessie's immediate protests - "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted!" - signal her transformation from willing participant to desperate victim. The second drawing narrows the selection to the Hutchinson family, with each member, including young Nancy and Bill Jr., drawing again until Tessie's slip bears the ominous black spot.
In the story's harrowing conclusion, the villagers turn on Tessie with terrifying speed. Mrs. Delacroix, who moments earlier comforted her friend, now selects a stone "so large she had to pick it up with both hands." Even Tessie's own children participate as the crowd closes in. Old Man Warner's urgings ("Come on, come on, everyone!") underscore the generational perpetuation of violence. Tessie's final cries of "It isn't fair!" go unheeded as the first stones find their mark, completing the ritual in a brutal crescendo that lays bare the story's central themes of blind conformity and the banality of evil.
Jackson crafts the story’s horror through meticulous foreshadowing and stark contrasts. Early details – children gathering stones, nervous laughter among adults – create mounting unease beneath the surface of a seemingly benign tradition. The detached, journalistic narration makes the final brutality more shocking, as does the villagers’ casual acceptance of the ritual. Key symbols like the shabby black box represent the fragility of tradition, while the stones embody humanity’s primal cruelty. The three-legged stool’s possible religious connotations add another layer of meaning, suggesting how societies pervert sacred concepts to justify violence.
The story’s genius lies in its narrative restraint. Jackson employs third-person objectivity, never commenting on the morality of the lottery, which forces readers to grapple with their own interpretations. The villagers’ ordinary personalities make their participation in violence more disturbing, illustrating how easily people conform to harmful norms. Through this approach, The Lottery becomes more than a horror story – it transforms into a powerful allegory about the dangers of unexamined traditions, from small-town rituals to large-scale societal injustices.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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