The Lottery by Shirley Jackson – Literary Analysis 

The Lottery is an interesting and suspenseful short story despite being a story about rather a traditional event in the context of the fictional society that the author writes about. Written by Shirley Jackson and published first in 1948, the story reflects upon interesting societal aspects with an unexpected violent ending due to the blindly followed tradition in the village which is The lottery. How did the author reflect upon this theme in the fictional society, the village? That is to say, how the tradition is reflected upon and illustrated in The Lottery? 

The story starts on the 27th of June when the villagers are gathering in the square to attend the town lottery. The lottery is run by Mr. Summers who has a lot of time to do things for the village. However, the lottery starts and Mr.Summers tells the public the rules. By that time, Mrs. Hutchinson arrived late because she forgot that today was the lottery day. The event seems to be festive until the drawings start and Tessie Hutchinson is declared a winner. Tessie protests hopelessly but won’t succeed in convincing Mr.Summers that he did not give her husband enough time. Finally, the villagers, including Mrs. Hutchinson’s own family, start to throw her by rocks as the “prize” is to be thrown by rocks until dead.  

The story takes place on the day of the 27th of June with no mentioned year in a small town or village where everyone knows each other. However, The author’s skillful use of contrasts in the story contributes to the suspense. In simpler words, Jackson, in chronological order, portrays a beautiful summer day with a festive mood in the village. At the same time, the author reveals some details about the terrifying ending of the story when the kids are gathering piles of stones and other villages have started to leave the lottery. Yet, the ending reveals something else. It is something very far from being festive and happy as it was illustrated in the beginning. It is a rather horrifying fact for the winner, Mrs. Hutchinson, the protagonist of the story, to know that she won the lottery as the prize would be death. Mrs. Hutchinson fails to overcome the antagonist of the story which is her death caused by the drawings of the lottery. The failure of the protagonist here makes sense of the story to develop upon the idea of the blindly followed tradition. 

The contrast in Jackson’s language and events contribute to making a point of the story. The story reflects upon the tradition or more concretely, upon the blindly followed tradition and how harmful it can be. Jackson illustrates an image of a civic activity where families gather and children play, but in fact, the gathering is for murder. However, the villagers seem to be convinced to some extent with the tradition of killing the winner of the lottery, and even Mrs. Hutchinson does not protest the idea of the lottery but she only protests her death. Furthermore, Older Man Warner is an important character in this context as he represents the tradition that the villagers are struggling with and unwilling to give up upon. The main idea which I believe interesting and Jackson raises is the idea that everything has changed about the tradition of the lottery from the rituals to the black box, but still, the blind villagers follow the “tradition” of killing the winner with stones that are made into piles by children.

“Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”

In this short story, Shirley Jackson creates an interesting and suspenseful story while at the same time raising an important societal issue of the blindly followed tradition. Despite being fictional events and characters, the main theme of the story is not very far from our societies and until now some beliefs are built upon traditions. That is to say, people need to question the matters that they are faced with and not only take them for granted.