The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Closed Reading
Howard is an avid short story reader who likes to help others find and sympathize stories.
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is one of the nigh famous short stories ever. It's a perfect candidate for anthologies, having a manageable length at about 3,400 words, and a shocking twist ending.
It's told past a third-person objective narrator.
Summary of "The Lottery"
It'due south June 27th in the village, at near 10 AM. The people starting time gathering in the square for the lottery. With only nearly three hundred citizens, they'll exist finished by lunch.
The children get there first. Bobby Martin fills his pockets with rocks. The other boys follow his lead.
The men gather and make some quiet small talk. The women arrive next. The parents call their children; each family stands together.
Mr. Summers oversees the lottery, equally he does all the other village events. He brings the black wooden box. Mr. Graves brings a stool, on which the box is placed. Mr. Martin and his son concord the box as Mr. Summers stirs the papers inside.
The box is old and worn. It hasn't been replaced because information technology represents their tradition. The night before, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves had prepared the slips of newspaper, put them in the box, and secured information technology for the night.
There are some elementary details to attend to before the result commences. Some parts of the tradition have inverse or been lost over the years.
Equally Mr. Summers turns to the villagers, ready to start, Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson hurriedly joins the group. She had forgotten it was lottery twenty-four hour period. She exchanges a few words with Mrs. Delacroix earlier spotting her family. She joins them near the front. There's a trivial calorie-free joking about her lateness.
Mr. Summers gets more serious as he starts the proceedings, asking if anyone is absent. Clyde Dunbar is laid up with a broken leg. His wife volition draw for him. Unremarkably, a man would do that, simply her son is only sixteen.
Mr. Summers asks if the Watson boy is drawing this twelvemonth. He'southward going to describe for himself and his female parent.
Anybody is accounted for. The crowd goes silent. Mr. Summers will call the family heads up to draw a skid. They'll refrain from looking at it until anybody has drawn.
He calls them upwards one at a time, from Adams to Zanini. Meanwhile, the mood is tense.
Mrs. Delacroix and Mrs. Graves talk about how apace the lottery comes around. Mr. Adams says a hamlet to the north is talking almost giving up the lottery. Mrs. Adams says other villages have already stopped. Old Man Warner says it would be crazy to listen to the immature folks and give upwardly their tradition.
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Anybody has drawn. Mr. Summers gives the word to open the slips. The women enquire who it is and who's got information technology. Bill Hutchinson has it.
Mrs. Dunbar'south son is dispatched dwelling house to update his begetter.
Neb stands quietly. His wife Tessie protests that he wasn't given a fair drawing.
Beak'due south household is the only 1 left; his oldest daughter is married and, thus, draws as part of her husband's family. Tessie continues to complain.
In that location are five members in Bill Hutchinson'south family. Beak's skid of paper is returned to the box, along with four others to correspond the other family unit members. The other slips are dropped to the ground.
The Hutchinson family has to draw ane by one. Mr. Graves helps little Dave Hutchinson draw his. Pecker'south daughter Nancy draws, followed by his son Billy. Mrs. Hutchinson draws and, lastly, then does Neb.
Mr. Summers gives the word to open the slips. Little Dave's slip is bare. So are Nancy and Billy'southward. Pecker Hutchinson'south is blank.
Tessie's paper has a black spot on it. Mr. Summers says they should end quickly.
The pile of stones the boys had gathered is ready. Mrs. Delacroix picks upwardly a heavy one. The children have their stones already.
Tessie is in a immigration with her hands out. She says it isn't off-white. A rock hits her in the head. Old Man Warner urges everyone on. Tessie screams as the crowd closes in on her.
Theme: Potential for Evil in the Ordinary Person
The inhabitants of this hamlet seem like perfectly ordinary people, right upwardly to the reveal at the end. They're concerned with piece of work, finances, gossip and other mean solar day-to-twenty-four hour period things.
Mrs. Delacroix and Tessie Hutchinson make some friendly small-scale talk earlier the cartoon. Later, Mrs. Delacroix scolds Tessie for complaining about the result. Shortly later on, she picks up a huge stone to drop on Tessie. Mrs. Delacroix seems like a normal person, simply she willingly plays her function in this barbaric ceremony.
Tessie Hutchinson, who's the lottery loser, only objects on the footing that it's unfair, non that it's immoral or unnecessary. Presumably, she wouldn't have objected if another family had fatigued the unlucky slip. Information technology's likely she wouldn't even accept objected strongly if someone else in her family had drawn it. This is implied when she tries to bring her oldest daughter into the draw. Based on this, I don't think she's making a principled objection about the evil of the rite, just a selfish just understandable one.
The stoning is carried out remorselessly. There's no indication anyone has a heavy heart when the lottery loser is identified.
After the first stage when the family unit heads show their slips, there no more mention of a full general tenseness in the crowd.
When the individual members of the Hutchinson family unit reveal their slips, there's relief that it's not one of the children—they all know that if information technology was, they would see the ritual through regardless. This is as far as the crowd'south misgivings go. They recognize information technology would exist worse to kill an innocent child, simply they'd still exist willing to do it.
The story illustrates the potential for evil in the ordinary person, especially if it's carried out as part of a cherished, irrational conventionalities.
Theme: Conformity
The citizens of the village are reluctant to stand out from the grouping.
This is hinted at early on on when we're told the recently released students' "feeling of liberty saturday uneasily on most of them". They're more comfortable with the routine of the classroom.
Throughout the process, the mood is somber. Mr. Adams comments that the northward village is talking about giving up the lottery. Mrs. Adams says other places have already done away with information technology. Although several citizens take misgivings virtually the lottery, no 1 insists that it should finish. Information technology's easier to go along with the majority.
Everyone accepts the lottery even though the meaning behind it is no longer in their thoughts. Sometime Human Warner says there "Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn exist heavy soon.'" He remembers why the lottery was instituted, but this isn't a current saying. The modernistic citizens carry it out as a tradition only, without believing it has any practical value. Despite this, no one wants to have an individual stand up confronting the group and risk being ostracized.
ane. What is the significance of the names of the boondocks leaders?
The lottery is conducted by Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves. These names could parallel the change in mood from the beginning to the end of the story.
Summers implies pleasantness and warmth, which is how things seem at the beginning equally we spotter a village carry out some ceremony that's important to them. Graves implies death, which is what the ending tells us the story was really leading to.
2. What story elements heighten the effect of the ending?
There are several things that make the ending more powerful:
- The story is set in a village with normal families on a warm summer day with flowers in flower and green grass.
- The objective narrator presents the details in a matter-of-fact way, letting the emotional outcome of the catastrophe hit the reader without any warning.
- The championship implies that the central event of the story is something positive—winning a lottery is almost always a adept thing.
Each of these elements increases the daze of the ending.
three. What does the blackness box symbolize?
As a visual representation of the lottery, the black box probably symbolizes it and, by extension, the citizen's inability to abolish information technology.
The box is shabby, splintered, faded and stained. The lottery also looks like something that has outlived its usefulness, as the villagers don't remember why they exercise it. Just as they don't want to alter the tradition of using that exact box, they don't want to take the much bigger step of eliminating the bodily tradition.
Each year there's a little talk almost replacing the box; similarly, there's a little bit of talk about ending the lottery.
Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Lottery-Summary-Analysis-Themes-Shirley-Jackson
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