Cultural Norms In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Development of society is based on the fluctuation of people’s mindsets. As people grow and cultural advancements are made, mindsets change and customs become abnormal. “The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson, deals with the customs of one village during one generation. Although it is a fictional expression, inside the story lays an underlying truth that Jackson tried to share with her neighbors about the culture and society they were living in. Women and men had long been unequal. Based on the cultural norms in this story, social customs emphasized the male figure and minimized the role of women. Analyzing the story from a gender-stereotyped angle clarifies what Jackson was telling her readers about the social order during that time.

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four children and a husband, Shirley Jackson was not a woman out of the ordinary during her time in history. As a woman dedicated to her family life, the stories that she wrote were often the polar opposite of the life she lived. Although it was custom for most woman solely to be caretakers of the home, Jackson never stopped writing or submitting her work to The New Yorker. Shirley Jackson published a few books about her family life; however, majority of her work was gothic or centered on witchcraft, “she explored the unstable boundary between domesticity and horror” (Musstafa 68). Growing up her mother was the type that “pressed for propriety and femininity” (Jamal 68) and lived strictly by the rules of society. Jackson was unlike her mother in the instance that she scorned the way society viewed what was correct about gender and class. Being different, not just in physical appearance but in the way she thought also, allowed Jackson to look at life through an altered lens. Her opposition towards the way society dictated people’s lives, laid the foundation for her love of poetry and short stories. The inspiration for “The Lottery,” sprouted from what she witnessed about society from the time she was a little girl. Society and cultural norm verbalized that it was acceptable to treat people in a separate class or gender a certain way; in “The Lottery,” the goal was to “shock the stories readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Franklin 10). Reflecting on the story using gender conflict and social order, the massage Jackson sends to her readers is relatable because of her credibility.
Although Shirley Jackson was a family woman, she loved to write stories that addressed the issues with society and the cruelty it displayed towards certain individuals. Discrimination based on gender was a fixed cultural stigma during Jackson’s time; this element plays out perfectly in the story. Women are inferiors and addressed as property to their husbands in the story and real life. There was no real value put on women other than living and working in the home (Kosenko 11). Jackson said that fifty percent of her life was spent washing and dressing her children, cooking, washing dishes and clothes and mending. Women and men in “The Lottery” display the average human in Shirley Jackson’s time. From the beginning of the story when the men are mentioned, there is an air of superiority in a passive yet dominant manner; women come together, catch up and then join their husbands. As with every culture, habits are formed form a young age. In the story separation is seen between the genders from the way the children interacted; boys ran around and gathered stones while the little girls in the village stayed together looking over their shoulders at the boys (Jackson 70). Children to this day follow or imitate what they see. Mothers held little weight out side of the home they were often looked at as being weaker until things were to go wrong in a family, it was always responsibility of that woman to fix it. Relating that idea to the story; Tessie did nothing wrong but had no choice but to take the persecution for her family (Jackson 77). Women in “The Lottery” reflect habits that all women are known for; talking excessively and out of turn is one primary example. Communication through words is the strongest asset for almost every woman, when the ballot is drawn from the black box women in the village fit the stereotype perfectly because the women begin “talking all at once” (Jackson 75). However, the conflict between the genders arises in the story when women are pictured as the weaker sex. Men of every household in the “The Lottery” are the breadwinners and figures of authority; their presence in the home was mandatory since they were responsible for drawing for their family. The drawing of the ballots allows Jackson to paint a picture of the average family life; if the husband was not present do draw the responsibility would not fall on the wife but on the oldest son of working age. The lack of respect women received was based on cultural customs, children rarely listened to the words of their mothers but when fathers spoke all monkey business was complete.
Men and women make up social customs.

While gender conflict might begin in the home, habits between the sexes moves from home to the public creating cultural norms. Leaders in society were always men because they were viewed as the stronger gender. Men did not use their power to include woman until much later in history. Jackson pointed out in the “The Lottery,” that men held the fate of every women living under their roof, in the palm of their hands; men could use power to control woman and society every chance they got (Kosenko 9). The men worked outside the home, which held more value, women worked in the home having and taking care of their children. Society in the story and the reality Jackson was living in were very similar when gender roles are brought into consideration. The more children a woman had in “The Lottery” meant it was less likely for anyone in her family to be chosen and stoned; while more children was expensive it also made sure the family name continued, especially if it was more boys. While having children made it less likely to be chosen, working extremely hard was also another concept the villagers had to prevent being chosen; this idea, while not voiced by anyone in the story, manifested itself in the lifestyles that the villagers lived (Kosenko 8). Customs in societies like that of “The Lottery” are led by selfish and greedy tendencies. “Even though methods for preventing death are obvious and put into practice the villagers would not rid themselves of the practice, there were other towns surrounding theirs that had stopped the practice of stoning the town members. What does that say about the people? The cruelty and selfishness in the hearts of the people superseded the desire to do right, to keep their neighbors around” (Hattenhauer 45). Before Tess was selected as the one to die, she was eager and willing to participate in the village ritual, it is apparent in the way that she rushed to get to the gathering after she remembered what

day it was. After her family was selected, she began to voice her opinion about how unfair the picking was and instead of speaking up to get rid of the draw all together, she wanted a redraw to be done; she wanted someone else’s family to be designated, even her own daughters family. This is a clear example of selfishness, cruelty and stupidity in the form of societal customs. This is a clear form extreme legalism that the villagers would continue a custom for so long, although it is damaging and reveals the wickedness in people’s hearts. Nelson Olmsted of NBC said, in regards to the Jacksons story, that “humanity is normally opposed to progress; instead it clutches with tenacity to the customs and fetishes of its ancestors”(Franklin 9). Culture in “The Lottery” is summarized perfectly in the words of Olmstead; there is no desire to obliterate the ritual even though lives were in danger that was the message Shirley Jackson was trying to share with her readers about the type of society they were living in.
Confusion and offense are the only two words that can describe how people felt after this story was published. The feedback that Jackson received from The New Yorker about they story from her readers was predominantly negative. “Many of her readers were perplexed by the story, found it outrageous, gruesome and utterly pointless and did not know how it was able to be published”(Franklin 2). The New Yorker knew that it was the most controversial story that they ever published, the effect that it had on society was “instant and cataclysmic because no other story would provoke such fury, horror, rage disgust and intense fascination”(Oppenhamer). Shirley Jackson was not expecting to get as much attention as she did for her story; to her it was just another casual story. In her opinion it was nothing out of the ordinary, Jackson was assured multiple times that if it had been her only story ever published people would never forget her name (McCarthy 2).
While the story is left up to the reader to determine, the negative response could only mean that this general population felt convicted or they wanted to know more about why it was not finished and what it really meant. There must have been an underlying voice in every readers mind about what the story really meant that addressed the issues with gender roles and social order. “The Lottery” did not just point out the flaws in people, it raised awareness to the issues that governed human beings and culture.