A Critical Assessment of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson, author of “The Lottery”, was born in San Francisco in 1919, but moved to Rochester, New York when she was a teenager. She later attended the University of Rochester, but due to a bought severe depression, which would plague her throughout her entire life, she had to drop out of school. Jackson later graduated from Syracuse University, and soon moved with her husband. Stanley Edgar Hyman, to Bennington, Vermont. While there she devoted herself to writing a fixed amount of words each day. Pieces she wrote varied from novels, The Road Through the Wall, various psychological thrillers such as Hangsaman, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and many articles for various magazines including Good House Keeping, generally about the difficulty of housekeeping and raising 4 children. Jackson claims that her motivation for writing the magazine articles was for the money they provided.
“The Lottery” was published in The New Yorker in 1948, and that specific issue of the magazine was very quickly sold out. When Jackson first sent the story to the publisher, Harold Ross, he wasn’t exactly sure what the story was about nor what the meaning was. He called Jackson and asked if she had anything to tell the readers if they were to call up to the magazine asking questions about the story, and she simply responded with “No.” To her it was simply a story that she has written. When asked about it later Jackson said that she wrote the story “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.”
The story begins with the people in the village gathering in the square starting with the children, and then the men of the village. While waiting the children begin to build a large pile of rocks of to the side of the square. Soon the wives appear and begin to gossip with each other, and then everyone joined up with their own family. During everyone’s arrival many people talk about how some towns are getting rid of the lottery and how maybe they could too, but the older generation criticizes them for this. The box that is used for the lottery is brought out by Mr. Summers, who runs the lottery, and placed on a stool. Mr. Summers calls role of all families to make sure everyone is there, and double checks on who is drawing for those who can’t physically be there. Then one by one the person drawing for each family goes up and choses a folded piece of paper out of the box and keeps it folded until everyone has had a chance to draw. The papers are then opened and the Hutchison family has drawn the paper with the black dot. Tessie Hutchinson, Bill’s wife, screams that it was unfair and that her husband didn’t have enough time to pick out the paper that he really wanted. She is quieted by her peers and husband and the family moves up to the front by the lottery box. 5 pieces of paper are put back into the box, including the one with the black dot on it, and each member of the family must draw a piece of paper. After everyone draws the papers are unfolded by each member of the family, starting with little Dave. Dave’s paper is blank, as is both his brother Bill Jr.’s and his sister Nancy’s. Next Bill Hutchinson opens his to find it blank. Everyone looks to Tessie and she shows that her paper has the black dot on it. The crowd quickly left Tessie in the middle of the open space, and the people pick up the rocks that the children had piled up. As Tessie says, “It isn’t fair,” a stone hits her on the side of her head. The men of the village tell everyone to come on, and then as Tessie screams, “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” the villager were upon her.
One theme that can be seen in “The Lottery” is small town’s dependence on tradition. The village in the story has been around for many years, and no one seems to remember the origination of the tradition, but whenever someone brings up ending the tradition they are met with heavy resistance by those who feel that the lottery is still necessary. This theme is also seen when the villigers talk about the box that is used for the lottery. The box has been around for many years, isn’t the original box, and is beginning to drastically show its age with splinters and cracks along all the sides. Every year Mr. Summers suggests making a new box, but the villagers are so worried to alter the tradition of the lottery that talk of making a new box ends as quickly as it started. A motif that can be seen in this story is rules, and how some can be followed strictly, while others are completely forgotten by everyone. One rule that is followed quite strictly is when the lottery is to be held. It is always held on the 27th of June, and this year was no exception. Rules also dictated as to who would draw for each family and that role as to be taken before they could start. At one point the chairman had to have an intricate salute to greet the villagers with as they each came up, but Mr. Summers only found it necessary to simply say something to each person that drew. Also the requirement for all the lottery pieces to be wooden chips had been changed to allow for an easier preparation for the lottery by using pieces of paper.
Many people have different interpretations of this story, including ones that may come as a surprise to the reader. Author Nayef Ali Al-Joulan makes an argument on how Jackson’s story can be linked to Islam in his article “Islam in Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery.’” In his article Al-Joulan refers to how the women in the story were seen as secondary to their similar to how women are seen often times in the Islamic culture. Stoning and the fixed annual dates of the story also seem to coincide with Islam. This interpretation is quite different from the reason why Jackson wrote the story in the first place, however one could claim that if this was here true intent, she may not have been willing to divulge this for fear of retaliation due to “her vague, confused, superficial, and stereotypical perception of Islam and Islamic rituals”(Al-Joulan). Another author, Amy Griffin, looked at the story from a perspective of mans need to have some sort of sacrificial ritual to purge of their sins. Griffin says that the timeframe in “The Lottery” coincides well with the peak of midsummer, and how such a time is generally joyous, where in reality the day is going to be one that is not joyous at all. She also refers to how the killing of a person and burying them in stones is reminiscent to a seed and how it has to be buried for it to eventually sprout life (Griffin).
This story is quite different from the story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” by Earnest Hemmingway. In Hemmingway’s story the tone is one that seems to contain an air of seriousness throughout the entire story. This is different from Jackson’s work as her story seems to be of a very happy and carefree tone for almost the entirety of the story, right up until the villagers turn on Tessie. Also in Hemmingway’s story the ending seems to be fairly clear as to what happens next, the old man will most likely just repeat the day he just ended (Hemmingway, 168). In Jackson’s story however, it is up for the reader to figure out what happens after Tessie is killed and how the village goes on with life after her. The two stories do share a similarity in that they both show a difference between the older and younger generations. This is shown differently in that the old and young in “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” differ in how they care for time and money, whereas in “The Lottery” the difference is in how the young and old see the tradition of the lottery and the necessity for it to continue.
These two stories provide very different aspects on culture. One paints a culture where things are taken for granted and no longer worked for, while the other shows a culture where scheduled violence is normal and to be expected. These works show that one person’s normal could seem very strange to another. “The Lottery,” has a culture that represents a typical American small village, but with a dark secret, possibly exposing how men consistently have some darkness in them just waiting to be expressed. “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” looks at thing from a perspective of having a place to call home and shows how very often people have an inner struggle within themselves on where they need to be.