From the very beginning of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, I felt myself uneasy and tense while reading it. The first page establishes an ominous tone and it is obvious this happy town has a dark feeling. You just know something bad is about to happen.
One thing that stuck out to me right away was the duality in the story. The children had just been released from school and the freedom weight “uneasy” on their minds. This was odd because I am always ecstatic when school lets out for the summer. The contrast in the names of characters was also kind of odd. Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves carry completely different tones.
The story also gives the reader a feeling that the town is old and bound in its traditions. The black box and Old Man Warner are representative of this. It also says people who wish to progress and do away with certain traditions are “crazy fools.” Even though some people wish to do away with certain rituals, they remain because they have always been around.
As the story progresses, the characters seem to not think much of this “lottery” they are about to take part in. There are children playing, women gossiping, and one woman just plain forgot that the lottery was that day. Overall it seemed not to be that big of a deal; it was just that thing that people showed up to once a year because they had to.
When the Hutchinson’s receive the “winning paper” it becomes evident from Tessie’s reaction that this lottery is not one anyone wants to win. They narrow down the names to one person and eventually Tessie is chosen. She becomes hysterical saying that it isn’t fair and it isn’t right. The tension mounts and finally you learn she has been chosen to be stoned to death.
I can definitely see why Shirley Jackson received so much criticism when she wrote this story in 1948. It was unsettling. I put the anthology down and just said, “Wow, that’s messed up.” The first time I read it. It was also criticized because it challenged tradition and rituals which in our culture and arguably every culture in the world are institutions with a lot of authority. To break the status quo is to rebel and resist. People don’t like that; people don’t like change.
If there is one thing this story taught me, it is that we need to both individually and as a society, examine the things in our lives we accept without question to be true or right or moral. When we look back at history, there were times where this was absolutely more than necessary. It often resulted in violent change but good change nonetheless. The first example that comes to mind is the institution of slavery. Slavery had been around for centuries if not longer and was brought to this country as early as the first settlers. It was not until the nineteenth century that people started to question how right it was to own another human being. The result of this question was the bloody Civil War, but had it not been fought, we might still have this evil institution around today.
This story was progressive to say the least and I can see why it made people mad, but it teaches a valuable lesson. For the most part I think tradition is a good thing, but skepticism is essential in today’s ever changing world.
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