In June of 1948, The New Yorker published “The Lottery,” a story by Shirley Jackson. Within days the magazine began to receive a flood of telephone calls and letters, more than for any other piece of fiction they had ever published. Almost all of those who wrote were outraged or bewildered—or both.
Why did this story provoke such a reaction? Why does it still shock readers?
Perhaps the answer lies in Jackson’s ability to depict so well the surface appearance of civilized society and the actual brutal, barbaric nature that lies just beneath this veneer.
Set the Scene, but don’t forget the punch!
It is a small village, a quiet one, where folks farm and square dance and buy coal to heat their houses and dutifully send their children to school. And these same folks, men who borrow tools from each other and women who exchange recipes, families who attend fund-raising pie suppers and Halloween programs, these folks get together every year and brutally murder one of their neighbors.
Who are these people? They are creations of Shirley Jackson, who created such a town and such a folk in “The Lottery.” But these people are also you and I, for Jackson makes clear in her story that the casual inhumanity exists in all our lives.
Use relevant quotations
“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right…”
These are the screams of Tessie Hutchinson and the words with which Shirley Jackson concludes her short story “The Lottery.” But it is not Tessie’s voice which remains even after the story is over; it’s Old Man Warner’s. “There’s always been a lottery,” he explains, seemingly vexed that others might question its continuance. This statement, set against the barbaric stoning of an innocent person, points us to one of the story’s compelling themes: a tradition is empty and meaningless when the reason for its observance has been forgotten.
Become a part of the paper
I didn’t understand. Why was Tessie saying something about the drawing being unfair? Didn’t she want to win the lottery? I read on, continuing to be puzzled by everyone’s relief at not drawing the winning ticket. What kind of lottery was this, anyway? By the end of the story I knew. And it made me angry, angry not only at these villagers who would do something so stupid, but angry too at Shirley Jackson, the author of “The Lottery” who had brought me to this unexpected ending. Looking back through the story, however, I realized that Jackson had worked hard from the very beginning to create the ironic twist that makes the story’s conclusion so compelling.
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