the lottery by shirley jackson essay

A Summary and Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Lottery’ is the best-known story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. Published in the New Yorker in 1948 and collected in The Lottery and Other Stories , the story is about a village where an annual lottery is drawn. However, the fate of the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip is only revealed at the end of the story in a dark twist.

‘The Lottery’ forces us to address some unpleasant aspects of human nature, such as people’s obedience to authority and tradition and their willingness to carry out evil acts in the name of superstition.

You can read ‘The Lottery’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Jackson’s story below. You might also be interested in the following articles we have written on other aspects of the story:

‘The Lottery’: key quotes explained

‘The Lottery’: key themes discussed

‘The Lottery’: main symbols

But for the present, let’s start with a brief summary of the plot of the story.

‘The Lottery’: plot summary

The story takes place one morning between ten o’clock and noon on 27 June, in a village somewhere in (presumably) the USA. The year is not stated. The three hundred villagers are gathering to undertake the annual ritual of the lottery, which is always drawn on this date every year. Some of the children of the village are busy making a pile of stones which they closely guard in the corner of the village square.

The lottery is led by a Mr Summers, who has an old black box. Inside the black box, slips of paper have been inserted, all of them blank apart from one. The head of each household, when called up to the box by Mr Summers, has to remove one slip of paper.

When every household has drawn a slip of paper, the drawn slips are opened. It is discovered that Bill Hutchinson has drawn the marked slip of paper, and it is explained that, next, one person from within his family must be chosen. His family comprises five people: himself, his wife Tessie, and their three children, Bill Jr., Nancy, and Dave.

Bill’s wife, Tessie, isn’t happy that her family has been chosen, and calls for the lottery to be redrawn, claiming that her husband wasn’t given enough time to choose his slip of paper. But the lottery continues: now, each of the five members of the Hutchinson household must draw one slip from the black box. One slip will be marked while the others are not.

Each of the Hutchinsons draw out a slip of paper, starting with the youngest of the children. When they have all drawn a slip, they are instructed to open the folded pieces of paper they have drawn. All of them are blank except for Tessie’s, which has a black mark on it which Mr Summers had made with his pencil the night before.

Now, the significance of the pile of stones the children had been making at the beginning of the story becomes clear. Each of the villagers picks up a stone and they advance on Tessie, keen to get the business over with. One of the villagers throws a stone at Tessie’s head. She protests that this isn’t right and isn’t fair, but the villagers proceed to hurl their stones, presumably stoning her to death.

‘The Lottery’: analysis

‘The Lottery’ is set on 27 June, and was published in the 26 June issue of the New Yorker in 1948. Perhaps surprisingly given its status as one of the canonical stories of the twentieth century, the story was initially met with anger and even a fair amount of hate mail from readers, with many cancelling their subscriptions. What was it within the story that touched a collective nerve?

We may scoff at the Carthaginians sacrificing their children to the gods or the Aztecs doing similar, but Jackson’s point is that every age and every culture has its own illogical and even harmful traditions, which are obeyed in the name of ‘tradition’ and in the superstitious belief that they have a beneficial effect.

To give up the lottery would, in the words of Old Man Warner, be the behaviour of ‘crazy fools’, because he is convinced that the lottery is not only beneficial but essential to the success of the village’s crops. People will die if the lottery is not drawn, because the crops will fail and people will starve as a result. It’s much better to people like Old Man Warner that one person be chosen at random (so the process is ‘fair’) and sacrificed for the collective health of the community.

There are obviously many parallels with other stories here, as well as various ethical thought experiments in moral philosophy. The trolley problem is one. A few years after Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ was published, Ray Bradbury wrote a story, ‘ The Flying Machine ’, in which a Chinese emperor decides it is better that one man be killed (in order to keep the secret of the flying machine concealed from China’s enemies) than that the man be spared and his invention fall into the wrong hands and a million people be killed in an enemy invasion.

But what makes the lottery in Jackson’s story even more problematic is that there is no evidence that the stoning of one villager does affects the performance of the village crops. Such magical thinking obviously belongs to religious superstition and a belief in an intervening God who demands a sacrifice in recognition of his greatness before he will allow the crops to flourish and people to thrive.

Indeed, in the realms of American literature, such superstition is likely to put us in mind of a writer from the previous century, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose tales (see ‘ The Minister’s Black Veil ’ for one notable example) often tap into collective superstitions and beliefs among small religious communities in America’s Puritan past.

But even more than Hawthorne, we might compare Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ with a couple of other twentieth-century stories. The first is another ‘lottery’ story and perhaps the most notable precursor to Jackson’s: Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 story ‘ The Lottery in Babylon ’, which describes a lottery which began centuries ago and has been going on ever since. Although this lottery initially began as a way of giving away prizes, it eventually developed so that fines would be given out as well as rewards.

In time, participation in the lottery became not optional but compulsory. The extremes between nice prizes and nasty surprises, as it were, became more pronounced: at one end, a lucky winner might be promoted to a high office in Babylon, while at the other end, they might be killed.

Borges’ story is widely regarded as an allegory for totalitarianism, and it’s worth bearing in mind that it was published during the Second World War. Jackson’s lottery story, of course, was published just three years after the end of the war, when news about the full horrors of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were only beginning to emerge in full.

Hannah Arendt, whose The Origins of Totalitarianism was published three years after ‘The Lottery’, would later coin the phrase ‘ banality of evil ’ to describe figures like Adolf Eichmann who had presided over the Nazi regime. Such men were not inherently evil, but were aimless and thoroughly ordinary individuals who drifted towards tyranny because they sought power and direction in their lives.

What is Jackson’s story if not the tale of decent and ordinary people collectively taking part in a horrific act, the scapegoating of an individual? Jackson’s greatest masterstroke in ‘The Lottery’ is the sketching in of the everyday details, as though we’re eavesdropping on the inhabitants of a Brueghel painting, so that the villagers strike us as both down-to-earth, ordinary people and yet, at the same time, people we believe would be capable of murder simply because they didn’t view it as such.

These are people who clearly know each other well, families whose children have grown up together, yet they are prepared to turn on one of their neighbours simply because the lottery decrees it. And the villagers may breathe a collective sigh of relief when little Dave, the youngest of the Hutchinson children, reveals his slip of paper to be blank, but Jackson leaves us in no doubt that they would have stoned him if he had been the unlucky victim.

And the other story with which a comparative analysis of ‘The Lottery’ might be undertaken is another tale about the idea of the scapegoat : Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1973 story, ‘ The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ’. In Le Guin’s story, the inhabitants of a fictional city, Omelas, enjoy happy and prosperous lives, but only because a child is kept in a state of perpetual suffering somewhere in the city. This miserable child is imprisoned and barely kept alive: the price the inhabitants of Omelas willingly pay for their own bliss.

Or is it? One of the intriguing details of Le Guin’s story is whether we are truly in a magical realm where this one child’s suffering makes everyone else’s joy possible, or whether this is merely – as in Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ – what the townspeople tell themselves .

Just as men like Old Warner cannot even countenance the idea of abandoning the lottery (imagine if the crops failed!), the people of Omelas cannot even entertain the notion that their belief in their scapegoat may be founded on baseless superstition. They’re making the child suffer, in other words, for nothing, just as Tessie Hutchinson is sacrificed for nothing: the crops will fail or flourish regardless. There are no winners in Jackson’s lottery: just three hundred losers.

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Home › Literature › Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery

Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 28, 2021

As were many of Shirley Jackson’s stories, “The Lottery” was first published in the New Yorker and, subsequently, as the title story of The Lottery: or, The Adventures of James Harris in 1949. It may well be the world’s most frequently anthologized short story. A modern horror story, it derives its effect from a reversal of the readers’ expectations, already established by the ordinary setting of a warm June day in a rural community. Readers, lulled into this false summer complacency, begin to feel horror, their moods changing with the narrator’s careful use of evidence and suspense, until the full realization of the appalling ritual murder bursts almost unbearably on them.

The story opens innocently enough, as the townspeople gather for an unidentified annual event connected to the harvest. The use of names initially seems to bolster the friendliness of the gathering; we feel we know these people as, one by one, their names are called in alphabetical order. In retrospect, however, the names of the male lottery organizers—Summer and Graves—provide us with clues to the transition from life to death. Tessie, the soon-to-be-victim housewife, may allude to another bucolic Tess (in Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles ), whose promising beginnings transformed into gore and death at the hands of men.

Shirley Jackson/Erich Hartmann

The scholar and critic Linda Wagner-Martin observes that only recently have readers noticed the import of the sacrificial victim’s gender: In the traditional patriarchal system that values men and children, mothers are devalued once they have fulfilled their childbearing roles. Tessie, late to the gathering because her arms were plunged to the elbow in dishwater, seems inconsequential, even irritating, at first. Only as everyone in the town turns against her— children, men, other women invested in the system that sustains them—does the reader become aware that this is a ritual stoning of a scapegoat who can depend on no one: not her daughter, not her husband, not even her little boy, Davy, who picks up an extraordinarily large rock to throw at her.

No reader can finish this story without contemplating the violence and inhumanity that Jackson intended it to portray. In the irony of its depiction lies the horror of this classic tale and, one hopes, a careful reevaluation of social codes and meaningless rituals.

Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s Stories

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-authors-voice/a-m-homes-reads-shirley-jackson-the-lottery

BIBLIOGRAPHY Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery: or, The Adventures of James Harris. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1949. Wagner-Martin, Linda. “The Lottery.” In Reference Guide to Short Fiction, edited by Noelle Watson, 783–784. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994.

The Lottery

By Shirley Jackson

Audio: Read by A. M. Homes.|||

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took only about two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.

Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and his oldest brother.

The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen-age club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him, because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, “Little late today, folks.” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?,” there was a hesitation before two men, Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.

The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year; by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.

Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them into the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers’ coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put away, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves’ barn and another year underfoot in the post office, and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.

There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up—of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.

Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out back stacking wood,” Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running.” She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time, though. They’re still talking away up there.”

Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through; two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your Mrs., Hutchinson,” and “Bill, she made it after all.” Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, “Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie.” Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe?,” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s arrival.

“Well, now,” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work. Anybody ain’t here?”

“Dunbar,” several people said. “Dunbar, Dunbar.”

Mr. Summers consulted his list. “Clyde Dunbar,” he said. “That’s right. He’s broke his leg, hasn’t he? Who’s drawing for him?”

“Me, I guess,” a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. “Wife draws for her husband,” Mr. Summers said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?” Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.

“Horace’s not but sixteen yet,” Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year.”

“Right,” Mr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Watson boy drawing this year?”

A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I’m drawing for m’mother and me.” He blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like “Good fellow, Jack,” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it.”

“Well,” Mr. Summers said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Warner make it?”

“Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.

A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. “All ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll read the names—heads of families first—and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?”

The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, “Adams.” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi, Steve,” Mr. Summers said, and Mr. Adams said, “Hi, Joe.” They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand.

“Allen,” Mr. Summers said. “Anderson. . . . Bentham.”

“Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more,” Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row. “Seems like we got through with the last one only last week.”

“Time sure goes fast,” Mrs. Graves said.

“Clark. . . . Delacroix.”

“There goes my old man,” Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.

“Dunbar,” Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women said, “Go on, Janey,” and another said, “There she goes.”

“We’re next,” Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely, and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hands, turning them over and over nervously. Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper.

“Harburt. . . . Hutchinson.”

“Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.

“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”

Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them . Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.”

“Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

“Nothing but trouble in that ,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools.”

“Martin.” And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. “Overdyke. . . . Percy.”

“I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. “I wish they’d hurry.”

“They’re almost through,” her son said.

“You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Dunbar said.

Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, “Warner.”

“Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. “Seventy-seventh time.”

“Watson.” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, “Don’t be nervous, Jack,” and Mr. Summers said, “Take your time, son.”

After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, “All right, fellows.” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saying, “Who is it?,” “Who’s got it?,” “Is it the Dunbars?,” “Is it the Watsons?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s Hutchinson. It’s Bill,” “Bill Hutchinson’s got it.”

“Go tell your father,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.

People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!”

“Be a good sport, Tessie,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “All of us took the same chance.”

“Shut up, Tessie,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“Well, everyone,” Mr. Summers said, “that was done pretty fast, and now we’ve got to be hurrying a little more to get done in time.” He consulted his next list. “Bill,” he said, “you draw for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?”

“There’s Don and Eva,” Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. “Make them take their chance!”

“Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Tessie,” Mr. Summers said gently. “You know that as well as anyone else.”

“It wasn’t fair ,” Tessie said.

“I guess not, Joe,” Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. “My daughter draws with her husband’s family, that’s only fair. And I’ve got no other family except the kids.”

“Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,” Mr. Summers said in explanation, “and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”

“Right,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“How many kids, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked formally.

“Three,” Bill Hutchinson said. “There’s Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me.”

“All right, then,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you got their tickets back?”

Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in the box, then,” Mr. Summers directed. “Take Bill’s and put it in.”

“I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair . You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Every body saw that.”

Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.

“Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.

“Ready, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.

“Remember,” Mr. Summers said, “take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Harry, you help little Dave.” Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. “Take a paper out of the box, Davy,” Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and laughed. “Take just one paper,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you hold it for him.” Mr. Graves took the child’s hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.

“Nancy next,” Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward, switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box. “Bill, Jr.,” Mr. Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, nearly knocked the box over as he got a paper out. “Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.

“Bill,” Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.

The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,” and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.

“It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be.”

“All right,” Mr. Summers said. “Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave’s.”

Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill, Jr., opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.

“Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.

“It’s Tessie,” Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. “Show us her paper, Bill.”

Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.

“All right, folks,” Mr. Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly.”

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry up.”

Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. “I can’t run at all. You’ll have to go ahead and I’ll catch up with you.”

The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head.

Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone.” Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.

“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her. ♦

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“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson: A Critical Analysis

Introduction: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Table of Contents

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson first published in 1948 takes place in a small, seemingly idyllic town in rural America, where the townspeople gather every year to participate in a ritual lottery. The lottery, which involves randomly selecting a winner from the townspeople, takes a dark and disturbing turn, revealing the hidden cruelty and brutality that lies beneath the surface of the seemingly peaceful community. The story has become a classic of American literature and is often studied for its exploration of themes such as tradition, ritual, and the dark side of human nature.

Main Events in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

The story opens on a beautiful summer morning in a small town where the residents are gathering in the town square for the annual lottery.
Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, the town leaders, arrive with the black box that contains slips of paper for each household in the town.
The townspeople draw papers from the box, with the head of each household going first, and the person who selects the slip of paper with a black dot on it is declared the “winner” of the lottery.
Tessie Hutchinson, a housewife, is declared the winner of the lottery and protests that the process was not fair.
The other townspeople ignore Tessie’s protests and start gathering stones, which are used in the second half of the ritual.
As Tessie is surrounded by the angry townspeople and pelted with stones, the reader is made to understand that this is a long-standing and accepted part of the community’s culture.
The stoning continues until Tessie is dead.
The villagers return to their daily routines as if nothing has happened, indicating that the event has become normalized in their society.
Some of the younger townspeople seem uneasy with the violence, but they do not speak out.
The story ends with the chilling description of the pile of stones left at the scene of the murder, as well as the shocking realization that this is a community-wide event that has been happening for generations.

Literary Devices in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Allusion : The names of some of the characters in the story have symbolic significance, such as Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, which allude to the nature of the event they oversee.
Hyperbole : Jackson uses hyperbole to emphasize the villagers’ excitement about the lottery, describing it as “the one day of the year that was desirable.”
Imagery : Jackson uses vivid imagery to describe the setting, creating a contrast between the idyllic summer day and the brutal violence of the lottery.
Irony : The story is full of irony, such as the fact that the villagers who are supposed to care for each other end up stoning one of their own.
Metaphor : The black box used in the lottery is a metaphor for the town’s history and tradition, as well as the darkness that lies beneath the surface.
Personification : The black box is personified as a character with its own history and significance, as well as the power to choose the “winner” of the lottery.
Point of View : The story is told from a third-person point of view, which allows the reader to see the events from the perspective of multiple characters.
Satire : Jackson uses satire to criticize the blind acceptance of tradition and the cruelty of mob mentality.
Simile : Jackson uses similes to create vivid descriptions, such as comparing the black box to a “joke.”
Social commentary: The story is a commentary on the dangers of blind acceptance of tradition and the power of mob mentality.
Symbolism : The black box represents the history and tradition of the lottery, as well as the community’s willingness to sacrifice one of its own.
Tone: The story has a dark and ominous tone, which creates a sense of foreboding and tension.
Verbal irony : Jackson uses verbal irony to create a sense of tension and unease, such as when the villagers cheer for the winner of the lottery.
Situational irony : The outcome of the story is a clear example of situational irony, as the person who wins the lottery is also the victim of the stoning.
Dramatic irony : The reader knows more than the characters in the story, which creates dramatic irony, such as when Tessie protests that the lottery was not fair, even though the reader knows that she will be the victim.

Characterization in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Major characters:.

Tessie Hutchinson: The central character, Tessie is initially portrayed as a concerned wife and mother, arguing with her husband about a missing household item (“Wouldn’t these stones hurt all over?”). However, as the story progresses, her character gains depth through her growing unease and eventual defiance (“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right”).
Mr. Hutchinson: Tessie’s husband, Bill, serves as a foil to her. He blindly follows tradition, even when it turns against his family (“All right, Tessie. That’s enough of that”). This highlights the conflict between blind tradition and individual survival.

Minor Characters:

Old Man Warner: The oldest villager, Warner represents the unwavering adherence to tradition. He defends the lottery’s importance (“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”) despite its brutality.
Mr. Summers: The lottery official, Summers, embodies a disturbing normalcy. He treats the event as a routine task, using a cheerful tone (“Good morning, everyone!”) to mask the ceremony’s sinister nature.

Characterization Techniques:

Dialogue: Dialogue reveals characters’ personalities and motivations. Tessie’s arguments expose her growing fear, while Bill’s acceptance highlights the danger of unquestioning tradition.
Actions: Characters’ actions speak volumes. Old Man Warner’s insistence on following the rules, despite the potential for his family to be chosen, showcases the tradition’s grip on the community.
Indirect Characterization: Descriptions of characters and their surroundings paint a picture of their roles and the story’s atmosphere. The seemingly idyllic setting (“The morning of June 27th was clear and warm”) contrasts sharply with the dark lottery ritual.

Impact of Characterization:

The characterization in “The Lottery” creates a sense of unease and foreshadows the horrifying climax. The villagers’ casual acceptance of the lottery (“Mr. Summers.. used the same stone year after year”) makes the ritual even more disturbing.

By focusing on the characters’ blind adherence to tradition and Tessie’s desperate rebellion, Jackson critiques the dangers of unquestioning authority and the potential for barbarity hidden within seemingly normal traditions.

Major Themes in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

1. The Power of Tradition:

Description: The story emphasizes the deeply ingrained tradition of the lottery. Phrases like “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (Old Man Warner) highlight its connection to the harvest and a perceived necessity for good fortune.
Impact: The villagers blindly follow the ritual, even Mr. Summers uses the “same stone year after year” despite its horrifying outcome. This unwavering adherence to tradition, regardless of its purpose, becomes a central theme.

2. Danger of Blind Conformity:

Description: The villagers act as a unified group, unquestioningly participating in the lottery. Even children like Dave Hutchinson are expected to participate, highlighting the pressure to conform.
Impact: Tessie’s eventual rebellion (“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right”) stands out against the conformity. Her fate emphasizes the danger of blindly following tradition without questioning its consequences.

3. Juxtaposition of Peace and Violence:

Description: The story establishes a peaceful setting (“The morning of June 27th was clear and warm”) with children playing and families gathering. This normalcy is shattered by the violent act of the lottery.
Impact: The contrast between the idyllic setting and the brutal ritual creates a sense of unease and exposes the potential for violence lurking beneath the surface of seemingly normal traditions.

4. The Randomness of Persecution:

Description: The lottery chooses its victim at random, with each villager having an equal chance of being selected (“each head of a household reached forward…).
Impact: This randomness heightens the fear factor. No one is safe, showcasing the senselessness and cruelty of the tradition. The lottery doesn’t punish wrongdoing, it simply chooses a scapegoat.

Writing Style in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Deceptive Simplicity and Understated Horror: Jackson uses plain language and a straightforward narrative style to lull the reader into a false sense of security, making the shocking conclusion all the more unsettling.
Foreshadowing and Symbolism: She employs foreshadowing and symbolism to hint at the story’s darker themes. Examples include the black box and the ominous gathering of stones.
Vivid Imagery and Sensory Detail: Her use of vivid imagery and sensory detail, particularly in the description of the stoning, creates a visceral and disturbing effect on the reader.
Effective Theme Conveyance: Overall, Jackson’s writing style in “The Lottery” effectively conveys the story’s themes of blind conformity, the dangers of tradition, and the potential for violence lurking beneath the surface of normalcy. It leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

Literary Theories and Interpretation of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson


	Analyzes the story in the context of its historical and social setting.	* The story’s publication in 1948, a post-war era with anxieties about conformity and mob mentality, contributes to the interpretation of the lottery as a critique of blind adherence to tradition and mob violence. * The seemingly idyllic small-town setting might reflect a nostalgia for a simpler time, but the lottery exposes the darkness beneath the surface.
	Explores the characters’ motivations and the psychological impact of the events.	* Tessie’s growing anxiety and eventual rebellion (“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right”) can be seen as a fight for survival and a challenge to the established power structure. * The villagers’ unquestioning participation in the lottery could be interpreted as a coping mechanism for fear and a need for belonging within the community.
	Analyzes the symbolic meaning of objects, characters, and events.	* The black box represents the darkness and brutality hidden within tradition. * The lottery itself symbolizes a scapegoating ritual, sacrificing one for the perceived benefit of the many. * The gathering of stones foreshadows the violence to come.
	Interprets the story as a representation of a broader concept or issue.	* The lottery can be seen as an allegory for scapegoating, persecution, or blind adherence to authority. * The story might also be interpreted as a warning about the dangers of mob mentality and the potential for violence lurking beneath seemingly harmless traditions.

Topics, Questions, and Thesis Statements about “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Topic: The Power of Tradition
Question: How does Shirley Jackson portray the power of tradition in “The Lottery”?
Thesis Statement: In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson utilizes the unwavering adherence to the annual ritual to highlight the dangers of blindly following tradition, even when it leads to violence and injustice.
Question: To what extent does “The Lottery” explore the conflict between blind conformity and individual survival?
Thesis Statement: Jackson’s “The Lottery” exposes the dangers of blind conformity through the villagers’ unquestioning participation in the lottery, contrasting it with Tessie’s desperate rebellion, which ultimately highlights the importance of individuality in the face of oppressive traditions.
Question: How does Shirley Jackson utilize symbolism and foreshadowing to create suspense and hint at the dark themes in “The Lottery”?
Thesis Statement: In “The Lottery,” Jackson employs powerful symbols like the black box and the gathering of stones, alongside subtle foreshadowing, to create a sense of unease and gradually reveal the story’s horrifying climax.
Question: How does Jackson challenge the idyllic small-town setting in “The Lottery” to expose a darker reality?
Thesis Statement: Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” dismantles the idyllic facade of a seemingly peaceful town by unveiling the brutal lottery ritual, highlighting the potential for violence and barbarity lurking beneath the surface of normalcy.

Short Question-Answer about “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

What is the purpose of the black box in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson?
The black box in “The Lottery” is a symbol of tradition and the power it holds over the people in the community. The box has been used for generations to hold the slips of paper that determine who will be the annual sacrifice, and the people in the community are afraid to change it. They even refer to the box as “the tradition,” and it serves as a physical manifestation of the hold that tradition has over their lives.
How does Shirley Jackson use foreshadowing in “The Lottery”?
Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing in “The Lottery” to create a sense of unease and anticipation in the reader. She drops hints throughout the story that the lottery is not going to have a happy ending, such as the ominous description of the villagers gathering and the reference to the “bad” lottery in nearby towns. By doing so, Jackson builds tension and a sense of dread that culminates in the shocking and violent conclusion.
What does “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson say about human nature?
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson suggests that humans have a tendency to blindly follow tradition and groupthink, even when it goes against their morals and values. The people in the community are willing to sacrifice one of their own every year because that’s what they’ve always done, and they’re afraid to break from tradition. Jackson’s story shows how easily people can be swayed by group dynamics and the power of tradition, even when it leads to violence and harm.
How does “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson critique society?
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a critique of society’s tendency to blindly follow tradition and the harm it can cause. Jackson’s story shows how easily people can be controlled by tradition and the pressure to conform, even when it goes against their own morals and values. By depicting the violent and ritualized sacrifice of a community member, Jackson exposes the darker side of societal norms and traditions and the danger of blindly accepting them.

Literary Works Similar to “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Works with Similar Themes:
“ The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ” by Ursula K. Le Guin: Explores the concept of a utopian society built upon the suffering of one individual.
“ Harrison Bergeron ” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: Satirizes the dangers of enforced equality and conformity in a dystopian future.
“ A Good Man Is Hard To Find ” by Flannery O’Connor: Explores themes of violence, morality, and the grotesque in the American South.
“ The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Uses a first-person narrative to create a sense of psychological horror and societal expectations.
“ We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson: Explores the isolation and unsettling family dynamics within a seemingly normal setting.
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury: Creates a chilling atmosphere with a focus on technology, childhood desires, and the darkness within seemingly perfect families.

Analysis of 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson

Taking Tradition to Task

ThoughtCo / Hilary Allison

Short Stories
Best Sellers
Classic Literature
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Ph.D., English, State University of New York at Albany
B.A., English, Brown University

When Shirley Jackson's chilling story "The Lottery" was first published in 1948 in The New Yorker , it generated more letters than any work of fiction the magazine had ever published. Readers were furious, disgusted, occasionally curious, and almost uniformly bewildered.

The public outcry over the story can be attributed, in part, to The New Yorker 's practice at the time of publishing works without identifying them as fact or fiction. Readers were also presumably still reeling from the horrors of World War II. Yet, though times have changed and we all now know the story is fiction, "The Lottery" has maintained its grip on readers decade after decade.

"The Lottery" is one of the most widely known stories in American literature and American culture. It has been adapted for radio, theater, television, and even ballet. The Simpsons television show included a reference to the story in its "Dog of Death" episode (season three).

"The Lottery" is available to subscribers of The New Yorker and is also available in The Lottery and Other Stories , a collection of Jackson's work with an introduction by the writer A. M. Homes. You can hear Homes read and discuss the story with fiction editor Deborah Treisman at The New Yorker for free.

Plot Summary

"The Lottery" takes place on June 27, a beautiful summer day, in a small New England village where all the residents are gathering for their traditional annual lottery. Though the event first appears festive, it soon becomes clear that no one wants to win the lottery. Tessie Hutchinson seems unconcerned about the tradition until her family draws the dreaded mark. Then she protests that the process wasn't fair. The "winner," it turns out, will be stoned to death by the remaining residents. Tessie wins, and the story closes as the villagers—including her own family members—begin to throw rocks at her.

Dissonant Contrasts

The story achieves its terrifying effect primarily through Jackson's skillful use of contrasts , through which she keeps the reader's expectations at odds with the action of the story.

The picturesque setting contrasts sharply with the horrific violence of the conclusion. The story takes place on a beautiful summer day with flowers "blossoming profusely" and the grass "richly green." When the boys begin gathering stones, it seems like typical, playful behavior, and readers might imagine that everyone has gathered for something pleasant like a picnic or a parade.

Just as fine weather and family gatherings might lead us to expect something positive, so, too, does the word "lottery," which usually implies something good for the winner. Learning what the "winner" really gets is all the more horrifying because we have expected the opposite.

Like the peaceful setting, the villagers' casual attitude as they make small talk— some even cracking jokes—belies the violence to come. The narrator's perspective seems completely aligned with the villagers', so events are narrated in the same matter-of-fact, everyday manner that the villagers use.

The narrator notes, for instance, that the town is small enough that the lottery can be "through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner." The men stand around talking of ordinary concerns like "planting and rain, tractors and taxes." The lottery, like "the square dances, the teenage club, the Halloween program," is just another of the "civic activities" conducted by Mr. Summers.

Readers may find that the addition of murder makes the lottery quite different from a square dance, but the villagers and the narrator evidently do not.

Hints of Unease

If the villagers were thoroughly numb to the violence—if Jackson had misled her readers entirely about where the story was heading—I don't think "The Lottery" would still be famous. But as the story progresses, Jackson gives escalating clues to indicate that something is amiss.

Before the lottery starts, the villagers keep "their distance" from the stool with the black box on it, and they hesitate when Mr. Summers asks for help. This is not necessarily the reaction you might expect from people who are looking forward to the lottery.

It also seems somewhat unexpected that the villagers talk as if drawing the tickets is difficult work that requires a man to do it. Mr. Summers asks Janey Dunbar, "Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?" And everyone praises the Watson boy for drawing for his family. "Glad to see your mother's got a man to do it," says someone in the crowd.

The lottery itself is tense. People do not look around at each other. Mr. Summers and the men drawing slips of paper grin "at one another nervously and humorously."

On first reading, these details might strike the reader as odd, but they can be explained in a variety of ways -- for instance, that people are very nervous because they want to win. Yet when Tessie Hutchinson cries, "It wasn't fair!" readers realize there has been an undercurrent of tension and violence in the story all along.

What Does "The Lottery" Mean?

As with many stories, there have been countless interpretations of "The Lottery." For instance, the story has been read as a comment on World War II or as a Marxist critique of an entrenched social order . Many readers find Tessie Hutchinson to be a reference to Anne Hutchinson , who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious reasons. (But it's worth noting that Tessie doesn't really protest the lottery on principle—she protests only her own death sentence.)

Regardless of which interpretation you favor, "The Lottery" is, at its core, a story about the human capacity for violence, especially when that violence is couched in an appeal to tradition or social order.

Jackson's narrator tells us that "no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box." But although the villagers like to imagine that they're preserving tradition, the truth is that they remember very few details, and the box itself is not the original. Rumors swirl about songs and salutes, but no one seems to know how the tradition started or what the details should be.

The only thing that remains consistent is the violence, which gives some indication of the villagers' priorities (and perhaps all of humanity's). Jackson writes, "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones."

One of the starkest moments in the story is when the narrator bluntly states, "A stone hit her on the side of the head." From a grammatical standpoint, the sentence is structured so that no one actually threw the stone—it's as if the stone hit Tessie of its own accord. All the villagers participate (even giving Tessie's young son some pebbles to throw), so no one individually takes responsibility for the murder. And that, to me, is Jackson's most compelling explanation of why this barbaric tradition manages to continue.

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“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson: A Literary Analysis Essay

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“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson about the impact of social conventions on real life. The story uses a utopian plot, in which in a country where people are constantly at war state, there is a tradition to hold a mysterious lottery every year. At the end of the story, it is revealed that the point of the lottery is to select a victim among the community members and collectively stone her to death. This paper argues that the story clearly illustrates the absurdity of myths or traditions, which do not pass the test of common sense.

The story describes a festive summer day, when fellow villagers gather to hold a lottery, as a result of which one of them will be stoned to death. The absurdity of the situation is aggravated by the fact that no one from the community condemns what is happening. On the contrary, the lottery is perceived by the villagers as something mystical and filled with a higher meaning. Some of the participants recall the unique cases when all the sheets in the box turned out to be white and say that this happened only once in a hundred years, and after that, the authorities came and forced the villagers to hold the lottery a second time.

Among the hundreds of people gathered, including women and children dressed nicely, as if for a Sunday mass, one can hear no more than a dozen timid disgruntled voices condemning the tradition. But in general, no one runs the risk of violating the ritual, which has existed for about two hundred years. After a random selection chooses the family of Bill Hutchinson, residents watch with bated breath how the lottery is now being played among family members, including Dave, who is apparently less than seven years old. The lot falls on Tessie, the wife, and the crowd does their duty responsibly, surrounding her and stoning her to death.

The author skillfully uses details to convey the horror of the situation. Outrage at the absurdity of tradition is expressed by ‘fools,’ in muffled whispers, and at the risk of being expelled from the community. The children have been collecting stones all morning, which are neatly stacked next to the meeting. On the eve of the lottery day, the lottery man responsibly fills the Black Box, and equally responsibly puts a circle on one of the sheets. From the dialogues between senior men, the reader learns that the tradition is in every possible way supported by the ruling military dictatorship.

One of the most emotional elements of the plot is the ending of the story when a blind lot must choose between members of the family of Bill Hutchinson. Even more terrifying, when the lot falls on Tessie, the reader is left with the feeling that things didn’t turn out so badly. The choice could fall on Bill, which would deprive the family of a livelihood, or on one of the children, which would be excessive cruelty. It is noteworthy that in the course of the narration, the author points out that some families got into the lottery several times. Therefore, Tessie’s death in no way provides full protection for her family in the future.

Thus, the lottery village has a value system that is in conflict with civilized society. The tradition of the lottery is cruel and unjustified, but because it is supported by the succession of generations, it continues. The lottery is not the idea of a military dictatorship ruling the country, it was introduced a hundred years earlier, and the regime found this tradition useful. Such a tradition conflicts with the fundamental values of a civilized society. Despite this, unfortunately, even today, events such as the storming of the Capitol or mass executions of civilians due to free access to weapons demonstrate the absurdity and unacceptability of some established traditions.

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The Lottery

Shirley jackson, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

The Juxtaposition of Peace and Violence

“The Lottery” begins with a description of a particular day, the 27th of June, which is marked by beautiful details and a warm tone that strongly contrast with the violent and dark ending of the story. The narrator describes flowers blossoming and children playing, but the details also include foreshadowing of the story’s resolution, as the children are collecting stones and three boys guard their pile against the “raids of the other boys.” These details…

Human Nature

Jackson examines the basics of human nature in “The Lottery,” asking whether or not all humans are capable of violence and cruelty, and exploring how those natural inclinations can be masked, directed, or emphasized by the structure of society. Philosophers throughout the ages have similarly questioned the basic structure of human character: are humans fundamentally good or evil? Without rules and laws, how would we behave towards one another? Are we similar to animals in…

Family Structure and Gender Roles

The ritual of the lottery itself is organized around the family unit, as, in the first round, one member of a family selects a folded square of paper. The members of the family with the marked slip of paper must then each select another piece of paper to see the individual singled out within that family. This process reinforces the importance of the family structure within the town, and at the same time creates a…

The Power of Tradition

The villagers in the story perform the lottery every year primarily because they always have—it’s just the way things are done. The discussion of this traditional practice, and the suggestion in the story that other villages are breaking from it by disbanding the lottery, demonstrates the persuasive power of ritual and tradition for humans. The lottery, in itself, is clearly pointless: an individual is killed after being randomly selected. Even the original ritual has been…

Dystopian Society and Conformity

Jackson’s “The Lottery” was published in the years following World War II, when the world was presented with the full truth about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In creating the dystopian society of her story, Jackson was clearly responding to the fact that “dystopia” is not only something of the imagination—it can exist in the real world as well. Jackson thus meditates on human cruelty—especially when it is institutionalized, as in a dystopian society—and the…

A scary old Gothic house from a horror film with lit but boarded windows.

Shirley Jackson: celebrating 75 years of taut, ambiguous, disturbing stories

Associate Professor in Popular Literature, Trinity College Dublin

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Bernice M. Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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In June 1948, readers of The New Yorker magazine were confronted by one of the most disturbing short stories of the 20th century. The Lottery , written by a young writer named Shirley Jackson opens with a description of a deceptively idyllic rural community.

It is a “clear and sunny” morning in June, and villagers cheerfully gather in their local square for the annual drawing of lots from which no one can be excluded. The story climaxes with an unforgettable act of violence which is all the more shocking because it is merely a matter of tradition.

A young woman in 1940 dressed plainly with round owlish glasses.

The story was an immediate sensation, but the experience was not an entirely positive one for Jackson. As she recounted in her essay Biography of a Story (1960), she received hundreds of letters from the public, many angry, others puzzled, and some from readers who actually wanted to see one of these (entirely fictional) lotteries unfold themselves. Jackson knew even then that she would forever be linked with The Lottery.

The tale’s impact was such that it has arguably overshadowed the legacy of Jackson’s remarkable debut collection, The Lottery and Other Stories (1949), which celebrates 75 years this year.

The Lottery and Other Stories

First published in April 1949, The Lottery and Other Stories remains a powerful reminder of Jackson’s distinctive literary vision. The stories also dramatise themes and anxieties found in many of her later works.

Although later associated with New England, Jackson was born in Northern California. She lived there until she was 16, when her wealthy father moved the family to Rochester, New York. She soon set her sights on becoming a professional writer and helped to establish a literary magazine called Spectre while still at Syracuse University (where she met her husband, the academic and critic Stanley Edgar Hyman).

On the surface, Jackson’s materially comfortable upbringing seems at odds with her often disturbing fiction. However, biographers have suggested that she had a strained relationship with her mother (domineering maternal figures often appear in her work) and that Jackson felt like she did not fit in.

Even in her earliest surviving writings one can see evidence of an original and perceptive creative intelligence. As The Lottery and Other Stories suggests, she was able to infuse seemingly everyday interactions with elements of the macabre and the fantastic.

Unhappy, frustrated and dissatisfied women often figure in Jackson’s stories. There is an allied preoccupation with feelings of jealously, loneliness and domestic entrapment. This anticipates ideas more famously explored in her novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962).

Jackson’s ability to depict disturbingly frank children and teenagers is well displayed in The Witch (about an encounter between a small boy and a gleefully morbid old man) and in the collection’s subtly apocalyptic opening story, The Intoxicated.

Her tonal versatility is underlined in the story Charles, based upon a humorous incident involving Jackson’s young son. It is a charming comic tale, but it also has a twist as jarring as those found in some of her more overtly Gothic works.

Another highlight is The Tooth, in which a young housewife reluctantly travels through the night to attend an urgent dental appointment in the city. A combination of exhaustion, anxiety and painkillers mean that she gradually becomes vividly detached from everyday reality.

The story underlines Jackson’s ability to immerse the reader in the mindset of an increasingly unmoored – but perhaps also increasingly liberated – protagonist. The Lottery and Other Stories also has an intriguing recurring character: a slyly updated version of the folkloric figure of the “demon lover”, here embodied in the form of a devilishly untrustworthy man in a blue suit named James Harris.

A trickster figure who appears in various guises, Harris is a dangerously alluring “strange man” in The Tooth but has perhaps most impact in the The Daemon Lover, in which he is the (never seen) fiancé who cruelly jilts his already chronically insecure bride-to-be.

The Jackson Renaissance

Following Jackson’s sudden death in 1965 at the age of only 48, it gradually became clear that despite the remarkable scope of her literary achievements – which by then encompassed six published novels, numerous stories and magazine articles, two family memoirs and several children’s books – her work was not being granted the attention it deserved.

When she was discussed, it was generally in relation only to The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House, which substantially influenced the next generation of horror writers, most famously Stephen King. It remains her most frequently adapted work: there were films in 1963 and 1999 (both entitled The Haunting) and it inspired the hit 2018 Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House .

For a variety of reasons – chiefly the fact that a predominately male literary establishment didn’t know how to view an author whose defiantly authentic persona and hard to neatly categorise work both resisted conventional critical classification. Jackson was, for several decades, overlooked or granted only qualified praise.

However, over the past decade and a half, she has experienced an extraordinary revival. Jackson’s renaissance reflects the efforts of her literary estate and of her four children, who remain tireless promoters of their mother’s literary legacy. Other significant developments include Ruth Franklin’s acclaimed 2016 biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life .

Her reputation has also been substantially boosted by the interest in her work expressed by contemporary authors, among them the likes of Paul Tremblay, Carmen Maria Machado and Daisy Johnson. Additionally, a new generation of academic scholars is transforming the landscape of Jackson studies : since 2016, four essay collections and a journal dedicated to her work have appeared.

A fictionalised version of Jackson also takes centre stage in the intense psychological drama , Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker in 2020.

Three quarters of a century on, The Lottery and Other Stories remains the perfect showcase for one of the 20th century’s most original, and now, most justly celebrated, authors.

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Shirley Jackson: celebrating 75 years of taut, ambiguous, disturbing stories

Posted on: 26 June 2024

Three quarters of a century on, The Lottery and Other Stories remains the perfect showcase for one of the 20th century’s most original, and now, most justly celebrated, authors, writes Bernice Murphy, in The Conversation.

Shirley Jackson: celebrating 75 years of taut, ambiguous, disturbing stories

The tale’s impact was such that it has arguably overshadowed the legacy of Jackson’s remarkable debut collection, The Lottery and Other Stories (1949), which celebrates 75 years this year.

The Jackson Renaissance

A fictionalised version of Jackson also takes centre stage in the intense psychological drama , Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker in 2020.

Bernice M. Murphy , Associate Professor in Popular Literature, Trinity College Dublin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Shirley Jackson — “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

Categories: Shirley Jackson The Lottery

About this sample

Words: 1133 |

Published: Sep 19, 2019

Words: 1133 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Works Cited

Jackson, S. (1948). The Lottery. The New Yorker, 27(26), 20-25.
Kosenko, P. (2010). A Reading of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". Journal of Modern Literature, 33(3), 155-165.
Leeming, D. A. (2013). Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": Disturbing the Universe. Literature and Theology, 27(1), 54-65.
Mellard, J. M. (2011). Demonstrating the Importance of Ritual in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". Journal of the Short Story in English, (56), 95-105.
Oppenheimer, J. (2016). When Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery" Was Not Fiction. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-shirley-jacksons-the-lottery-was-not-fiction
Parks, R. (2005). Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers.
Polman, L. (2010). The Lottery's Enduring Impact. Humanities, 31(1), 28-31.
Reilly, C. (2015). The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson and Modern Horror. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 43(4), 218-228.
Van Spanckeren, K. (2019). Shirley Jackson (1916–1965). In American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present (Vol. 3, pp. 139-148). Routledge.
Wagner-Martin, L. (2017). New Essays on The Lottery: A Collection of Critical Essays. Routledge.

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Related Essays on Shirley Jackson

O'Connor, Flannery. 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find.' The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Nina Baym et al., W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 177-186.Jackson, Shirley. 'The Lottery.' The Lottery and Other Stories, [...]

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Shirley Jackson: celebrating 75 years of taut, ambiguous, disturbing stories

The tale’s impact was such that it has arguably overshadowed the legacy of Jackson’s remarkable debut collection, The Lottery and Other Stories (1949), which celebrates 75 years this year.

The Lottery and Other Stories

The Jackson Renaissance

A fictionalised version of Jackson also takes centre stage in the intense psychological drama , Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker in 2020.

Three quarters of a century on, The Lottery and Other Stories remains the perfect showcase for one of the 20th century’s most original, and now, most justly celebrated, authors.

This article was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

France’s far-right leader Le Pen questions Macron’s role as army chief

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The Lost Art, and the One Who Perfected It

The queen of snail mail.

This post was originally published on my website last summer. After reading Ellen Eve Sanderson ’s excellent ode to physical mail, More love letters, please. , I decided I wanted this post on my SubStack, too. Made some few tweaks. Please enjoy.

In June 2023, I finished reading The Letters of Shirley Jackson . Now, a year later, I can confidently say: I am totally and completely obsessed. I find myself thinking about the collection at least once a week. I cannot believe I read 600 pages of letters Shirley Jackson wrote in her lifetime and am still left wanting more. (For the record: This book inspired me to write long letters of my own to at least five separate friends detailing the mundane activities of my life in the most fun tone I could conjure. So, thanks, Shirley.)

Writing letters is a lost art form, is it not?

I suppose now many don’t see a need for it. Captions on social media may feel like a letter to all your friends at once. A text message is our current-day way of saying “I’m thinking of you.” Friends and family are just one click, one phone call, one FaceTime away. And yet… and yet…

We may not need letters now in the way that Shirley Jackson felt she needed them in the 20th century. But we can still want them.

In this collection, some of my favorite letters are the ones Shirley wrote to her future husband Stanley in 1938-1940, when she was in her early 20s. They are so ALIVE and spunky and electric. She loved to play with language, and it shows. I laughed out loud multiple times. Let’s look at some of my favorites, shall we?

mother seems to think i’m insane, and closes her eyes in a pained fashion when i call her chum. she also tells me that love or no love i have to eat and when i say eatschmeat she says what did you say and for a minute icy winds are blowing.

—Letter to Stanley Edgar Hyman, June 1938

i also told father all about communism which was wrong, wasn’t it. he said re-ally in a whatthehelldoyouknowaboutlifeyoushelteredvictorianflower sort of voice

‘tanely . . . i think i’ll come to new york and get laid. oooooooooh yes. my mother mayhertribeincrease had been reading liberty [magazine] that oracle of the masses and has discovered that eight out of ten college students are all for immorality. she has been asking me leading questions until i came out and said that if she meant had i preserved the fresh bloom of dewy innocence yes i had but it hurt me a damn sight more than it ever hurt liberty.

… You understand my obsession now, yes?

Since she tended to type a lot of her letters on a typewriter, she didn’t bother with proper punctuation, writing to Stanley Edgar Hyman: “notice if you haven’t already that i have borrowed your distinctive writing style with ideas of my own such as no punctuation which is a good idea since semi-colons annoy me anyway.” It just so happened that I was writing a short story of my own when I picked up this collection, and had already decided to make one of the character’s written communications have improper punctuation and capitalization to set her apart from others. Seeing that reflected back to me in Jackson’s words confirmed my choice, allowing me to breathe life into this character. So… again… thanks, Shirley.

I had only read three of Jackson’s pieces of work prior to this: Her short story “ The Lottery ” (of course), and her novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. As a result, I found the most enjoyment reading letters that talked about those pieces and their creative processes. What fun it was to see Eleanor from Hill House was originally named Erica; Merricat from Castle was originally named Jenny; or even that Jackson completely scrapped an awful early draft of Castle and started all over again. She spoke of her characters as if they were alive and had minds of their own. As a writer myself, it was all… very relatable.

The drawings and the letters about her household duties made me wonder what would have happened if Shirley Jackson was born in a different time, or perhaps was married to someone who wasn’t such a prick (sorry not sorry). The fact that she was such a prolific writer in an age when she was expected to be Mother first, Housewife second, and Writer last is astounding. Her work ethic! Her creativity! Her talent!

Her doodles throughout the book often portray the delicate juggling act of it all:

While her doodles are charming, accompanied by witty captions that resemble comics from the New Yorker , it feels easy to see the desperation behind them. They aren’t just funny, goofy comics. They are a woman in the 1940s-1960s portraying her attempt to do it all.

It is always such a strange feeling — I know something’s going to happen, and those poor people in the book don’t; they just go blithely on their way.

—Letter to her agent about her Hill House characters

That quote is exactly how I felt reading this book, especially once we got to the 1960s (Jackson died in 1965 at the age of 48). Her impending and untimely death loomed over the letters, but of course she had no idea. She was robbed of many more decades; we were robbed of many more stories. At least this book was a wonderful way to honor her legacy, and I would guess it was enjoyable for her son Laurence Jackson Hyman to put it together (imagine combing through your mother’s letters from 60+ years ago, when so many of them detail your childhood and teenage years. In those letters, Laurie was a baby up until his 20s; now, in current day, Laurie is in his 80s. Am I the only one who feels so sad about the passing of time?)

I am glad this was a collection of letters rather than published diaries. It felt less invasive, especially as she asked her parents at one point to keep the letters so that they may be published one day. (Iconic.) It also felt like she was writing to me personally, and wouldn’t that be lovely!!!!

Above all, this collection really opened me up to the connective power of words, as if I didn’t already know that. The fact that I could read a letter from the 1940s and feel her energy and spirit just pouring out of it was nothing short of inspiring. Letters provide a certain immortality: I was here, I mattered, I had something to say.

Even as I write this now, I feel the urge to go to my stationary collection and start writing letters to all my friends again. In 2024, opening your mailbox and seeing a surprise handwritten letter from someone in your life feels like the warmest, sweetest hug.💛

And now, because I selfishly want part of Ellen’s essay to forever live on my blog, here’s my favorite part of what she had to say about physical mail:

The paper the writer chose, their handwriting, their signature—there seems to be space for a little piece of the writer in a letter. Maybe there is something in the immediacy of an email that is so convenient, neat and organised that it can't quite capture the messiness of personhood. Maybe waiting for a letter simply gives you room to miss people properly. Somehow, I feel closest to the people I love, not when I am talking to them but writing to them. - Ellen Eve Sanderson , More love letters, please .

Thanks for reading Paige’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Shirley Jackson: Celebrating 75 Years Of Taut, Ambiguous, Disturbing Stories

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It is a“clear and sunny” morning in June, and villagers cheerfully gather in their local square for the annual drawing of lots from which no one can be excluded. The story climaxes with an unforgettable act of violence which is all the more shocking because it is merely a matter of tradition.

The tale's impact was such that it has arguably overshadowed the legacy of Jackson's remarkable debut collection, The Lottery and Other Stories (1949), which celebrates 75 years this year.

First published in April 1949, The Lottery and Other Stories remains a powerful reminder of Jackson's distinctive literary vision. The stories also dramatise themes and anxieties found in many of her later works.

On the surface, Jackson's materially comfortable upbringing seems at odds with her often disturbing fiction. However, biographers have suggested that she had a strained relationship with her mother (domineering maternal figures often appear in her work) and that Jackson felt like she did not fit in.

Unhappy, frustrated and dissatisfied women often figure in Jackson's stories. There is an allied preoccupation with feelings of jealously, loneliness and domestic entrapment. This anticipates ideas more famously explored in her novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962).

Jackson's ability to depict disturbingly frank children and teenagers is well displayed in The Witch (about an encounter between a small boy and a gleefully morbid old man) and in the collection's subtly apocalyptic opening story, The Intoxicated.

Her tonal versatility is underlined in the story Charles, based upon a humorous incident involving Jackson's young son. It is a charming comic tale, but it also has a twist as jarring as those found in some of her more overtly Gothic works.

The story underlines Jackson's ability to immerse the reader in the mindset of an increasingly unmoored – but perhaps also increasingly liberated – protagonist. The Lottery and Other Stories also has an intriguing recurring character: a slyly updated version of the folkloric figure of the“demon lover”, here embodied in the form of a devilishly untrustworthy man in a blue suit named James Harris.

A trickster figure who appears in various guises, Harris is a dangerously alluring“strange man” in The Tooth but has perhaps most impact in the The Daemon Lover, in which he is the (never seen) fiancé who cruelly jilts his already chronically insecure bride-to-be.

Following Jackson's sudden death in 1965 at the age of only 48, it gradually became clear that despite the remarkable scope of her literary achievements – which by then encompassed six published novels, numerous stories and magazine articles, two family memoirs and several children's books – her work was not being granted the attention it deserved.

For a variety of reasons – chiefly the fact that a predominately male literary establishment didn't know how to view an author whose defiantly authentic persona and hard to neatly categorise work both resisted conventional critical classification. Jackson was, for several decades, overlooked or granted only qualified praise.

However, over the past decade and a half, she has experienced an extraordinary revival. Jackson's renaissance reflects the efforts of her literary estate and of her four children, who remain tireless promoters of their mother's literary legacy. Other significant developments include Ruth Franklin's acclaimed 2016 biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life .

A fictionalised version of Jackson also takes centre stage in the intense psychological drama , Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker in 2020.

Three quarters of a century on, The Lottery and Other Stories remains the perfect showcase for one of the 20th century's most original, and now, most justly celebrated, authors.

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"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
Get a custom Essay on "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. The plot of the story depicts a two hours lottery in a small town which finishes with a ritualistic death ceremony of stoning the unlucky participant as a sacrifice for ensuring a better harvest. At the beginning of the short story, the village children walk around collecting stones.
A Summary and Analysis of Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'The Lottery' is the best-known story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. Published in the New Yorker in 1948 and collected in The Lottery and Other Stories, the story is about a village where an annual lottery is drawn. However, the fate of the person who draws the 'winning'….
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson Essay (Critical Writing)
The Lottery i s a 1948 story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about a small town in the United States that maintains a lottery tradition every year. One resident of this town is chosen randomly by drawing lots, and the rest throw stones at him (Jackson). The first publication of this work caused a broad resonance among readers.
The Lottery Literary Analysis
The Lottery, a short story by Shirley Jackson, exposes humanity's brutal and inhumane actions through different characters. Set in a rural village, the plot highlights how traditional customs and practices can lead to the acceptance of cruel behavior. The Lottery literary analysis essay discusses the dangers of blindly following tradition and ...
The Lottery Jackson, Shirley
SOURCE: "Shirley Jackson, 'The Lottery': Comment," in Modern Short Stories: A Critical Anthology, edited by Robert B. Heilman, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1950, pp. 384-85. [ Heilman is an English ...
Analysis of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
As were many of Shirley Jackson's stories, "The Lottery" was first published in the New Yorker and, subsequently, as the title story of The Lottery: or, The Adventures of James Harris in 1949. It may well be the world's most frequently anthologized short story. A modern horror story, it derives its effect from a reversal of….
The Lottery Summary & Analysis
Analysis. The morning of June 27th is a sunny, summer day with blooming flowers and green grass. In an unnamed village, the inhabitants gather in the town square at ten o'clock for an event called "the lottery.". In other towns there are so many people that the lottery must be conducted over two days, but in this village there are only ...
"The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson
The Lottery. By Shirley Jackson. June 18, 1948. Photograph by Garrett Grove. Audio: Read by A. M. Homes.|||. The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer ...
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson: A Critical Analysis
Literary Devices in "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Allusion: The names of some of the characters in the story have symbolic significance, such as Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, which allude to the nature of the event they oversee.; Hyperbole: Jackson uses hyperbole to emphasize the villagers' excitement about the lottery, describing it as "the one day of the year that was desirable."
Analysis of 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson
Analysis of 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson. Taking Tradition to Task. When Shirley Jackson's chilling story "The Lottery" was first published in 1948 in The New Yorker, it generated more letters than any work of fiction the magazine had ever published. Readers were furious, disgusted, occasionally curious, and almost uniformly bewildered.
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The short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson discusses several issues affecting people in modern society. The story examines a small village of about three hundred people who gather in a town to participate in a lottery exercise — of being sacrificed to bring good to the community. Residents in some towns already abandoned this ...
PDF by Shirley Jackson
The Lottery--Shirley Jackson "The Lottery" (1948) by Shirley Jackson The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers ... box steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it. The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting ...
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Decent Essays. 1490 Words. 6 Pages. Open Document. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is a story littered with warnings and subtext about the dangers a submissive society can pose. While the opening is deceptively cheery and light Jackson uses an array of symbols and ominous syntax to help create the apprehensive and grim tone the story ends ...
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Born on December 14th, 1916 Shirley Jackson was a well-established American writer until her death on August 8th, 1965. She primarily wrote horror, mystery, and supernatural stories. Within her two-decade long career she wrote six novels, two memoirs, and over 200 short stories, with some of her most prominent works including: "The Haunting of Hill House" and "The Bird's Nest".
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Exclusively available on IvyPanda®. "The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson about the impact of social conventions on real life. The story uses a utopian plot, in which in a country where people are constantly at war state, there is a tradition to hold a mysterious lottery every year. At the end of the story, it is revealed that ...
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Published: Dec 3, 2020. 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson is an account of an irregular town trapped in a snare of continually following custom, in any event, when it isn't to their greatest advantage. Jackson utilizes images all through the story that identify with the general topic.
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Jackson's "The Lottery" was published in the years following World War II, when the world was presented with the full truth about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In creating the dystopian society of her story, Jackson was clearly responding to the fact that "dystopia" is not only something of the imagination—it can exist in the real ...
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In June 1948, readers of The New Yorker magazine were confronted by one of the most disturbing short stories of the 20th century. The Lottery, written by a young writer named Shirley Jackson opens ...
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In June 1948, readers of The New Yorker magazine were confronted by one of the most disturbing short stories of the 20th century. The Lottery, written by a young writer named Shirley Jackson opens with a description of a deceptively idyllic rural community.. It is a "clear and sunny" morning in June, and villagers cheerfully gather in their local square for the annual drawing of lots from ...
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Published: Sep 19, 2019. In the short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the most prominent literary concept exemplified is imagery, which is the use of visually descriptive and symbolic language. When imagery is used correctly, it allows the reader to paint a vivid picture of the literary work. It also captures the reader's subconscious ...
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The Lost Art, and the One Who Perfected It
In June 2023, I finished reading The Letters of Shirley Jackson. Now, a year later, I can confidently say: I am totally and completely obsessed. I find myself thinking about the collection at least once a week. I cannot believe I read 600 pages of letters Shirley Jackson wrote in her lifetime and am still left wanting more. (For the record ...
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Analysis of 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson

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What Does "The Lottery" Mean?

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson: A Literary Analysis Essay

The Lottery

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Shirley Jackson: celebrating 75 years of taut, ambiguous, disturbing stories

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