The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Kevin Phillips                                                                                                                    

Professor Ivey

English 1101

19 February 2016

The Lottery Lives On

The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson talks about a lottery much different than the lottery we think of today. The lottery Jackson speaks of doesn’t include winning loads of money and becoming wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Her lottery speaks of a much darker side, winning the lottery in her story means you’ve won the right to be stoned to death by the people of your town. Jackson’s story speaks of a tradition that is cruel and inhumane but the village people continue to take place in it year after year. It’s kind of a harsh reality to the way things still are in today’s society.

The setting for Jackson’s story was in a small close knit village where everyone knew each member of the village; there were no strangers in the town she wrote about. The lottery that was wrote about took place every year on June 27th  in the town’s square. Every member of the town was required to par take in the lottery regardless of their age. No one was exempt from the lottery; even if they weren’t physically present a family member would draw for them. The same procedure was followed each year to ensure every part of the lottery stayed the same.

The procedure the people of the town used to conduct the lottery was fairly simple. A stool was placed in the middle of the town’s square and an old black box was placed on the stool. The box contained slips of paper; one of the pieces had a mark on it. The head of each household drew for their families. The unlucky family in this lottery was Bill Hutchinson’s family. After

Mr. Hutchinson drew the marked paper each member of his family was asked to do the same, so only five pieces of paper were put back in the box. Bill’s wife Tessie wasn’t happy that her family was about to endure the final lottery drawing but they continued anyway until a single person was left with the marked piece of paper. That unlucky person was Tessie, the wife of Bill and mother to four children. After everyone was aware of the person who drew the winning lottery ticket the ugly truth of the lottery presented itself. Tessie was stoned to death by the town’s people; everyone participated and tried to make it as quick as possible.

I think Jackson wrote this story in a very straight forward tone so that her reader’s would completely understand what it was she was describing. She made it clear that no matter what the consequences the people of this town continued to go through with this harsh procedure each year even if it meant killing one of their own. Out of all the people in the town that took place in the lottery the only one that spoke up and said something negative about it was Tessie Hutchinson. Unfortunately for her she was the one who the one who was stoned to death for being unlucky and winning the lottery. After the lottery was complete the towns people went back to their everyday lives just like nothing ever happened. They probably didn’t even start to think about it again until June of the next year.