Death In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

“Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (132). Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a tale that showcases a strange yearly tradition within a small town where neither the children nor the elderly are exempt from participating. Throughout the story, Jackson lures readers into a false sense of serenity with her title where she then proceeds to illustrate a peculiar and perhaps merciless gathering of the townspeople participating in a bizarre annual lottery event. It is not surprising then that this short story could be considered barbaric and the title misleading.

The most brutal and barbaric part of the short story written by Jackson is the manner of death that is

inflicted upon the alleged winner of the lottery. While no specific time period is given, one can still see from the detailed writing that this town is a civilized and well-functioning society. For instance, Jackson writes “they [the children] broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands” (127). Other scenes also continue to demonstrate how ordinary the town appears at first like “Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (127). This key detail makes the method of stoning used to kill the chosen participant even more ruthless. Not only does there seem to be no need for such a ritual such as overpopulation, drought, or lack of food production, but even if there was a reasonable justification to continue the tradition of murdering someone annually, there are far more humane ways to do it rather than stoning the individual to death.
Another way that the stoning is made even more brutal is by the fact that no one is exempt from participating. This can be seen by the Hutchison’s youngest child, Dave. Dave is not even old enough to be trusted to hold or open his own slip of paper for the lottery as can be seen from the line “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” (131). Despite the fact that little Dave can barely even physically contribute to the lottery he is still forced to participate in the ritual that may take his life before he has even gotten the chance to live it. Thus, the fact that these villagers have no remorse for taking even the innocent life of a child continues to demonstrate the ruthless lifestyle occurring in this township.
Additionally, the last way that this brutal method of stoning is made even worse is how normal the town’s first impression is. The villagers appear to lead happy lives in a small town of roughly three hundred. Moreover, due to the relatively small size of the town, everybody seems to know everybody. Nonetheless, this seemingly sophisticated town that many people can easily imagine in their heads has little issue murdering family or friends all for the sake of a mostly forgotten tradition. Jackson also starts the story with a title that many people associate with good fortune and continues to write a pleasant summer’s day at the beginning of the short story. Because of these two characteristics that occur early on in the story, Jackson’s misleading title and the story's opening scene makes the stoning of Tessie Hutchison even worse due to the false complacently that readers fall into at the start of the story.
Alternatively, an additional attribute that adds to the barbaric nature of the short story is the casual manner that the murders are conducted in and the gathering of the townspeople before it.

For example, one of the characters, Jack Watson, is now old enough to participate in the lottery. However, instead of the crowd being nervous, Jack gets several comments such as “Good fellow, Jack” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it” in reference to how it is about time Jack stepped up and selected the slip of paper from the black box instead of making his mother do it for the both of them (129). Likewise, another set of characters that demonstrated the indifference felt about the loss of life are the Dunbars. Earlier in the story, the audience is told that Mr. Dunbar is not able to attend the lottery due to a broken leg. However, later in the story, Ms. Dunbar tells her oldest son not once, but twice to be ready to run home so he can convey to his father which individual won the lottery. This action that Ms. Dunbar makes her child perform displays not just how casually the lottery is treated, but also how eager some of the townspeople are about the results of the lottery. Overall, these two sets of characters and the events that surround them showcase how little the villager’s value life and how instead of being remorseful the townspeople treat the lottery life as if it is nothing more than a light-hearted

game.
Furthermore, there are two more mannerisms that occur that truly showcase the causal and withdrawn manner in which the lottery is conducted.

First, once Tessie Hutchison is chosen, it takes no time for the townspeople to turn on her. This can be seen by Tessie’s family members like her youngest child Dave who takes little time to find his own pebbles to be used in the killing of his own mother. Similarly, Mrs. Delacroix who had chatted with Tessie earlier in the story and seemed to be good friends with Tessie had little issues selecting “a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands” (132). Lastly, it can also be seen that most of the townspeople showed no remorse for killing someone. To demonstrate, even with Tessie pleading for her life, the only comments from the residents of this small town were to quicken their pace like Ms. Dunbar stating “Come on, hurry up” or Old Man Warner saying “ Come on, come on, everyone” and not one villager stood up for Tessie or showed any other actions of remorse (132). Ultimately, these last two actions continued to demonstrate how emotionless all of the townspeople are when it comes to brutally killing individuals, no matter what their previous relationship was to any of the characters and further demonstrates the truly barbaric nature of this

tale.
In part, one reason as to why Jackson’s “The Lottery” is made even more brutal is due to the misleading title. Many readers associate the word lottery with good fortune and usually someone earning some extra cash as well. However, the lottery that occurs in this short story is one that takes a human life. Furthermore, due to Jackson’s use of such a misleading title readers are expecting that the lottery being hosted in this small town is one for celebration. Therefore, when the readers discover what happens to the so-called winner of the lottery they are horrified and confused as to why such a disarming title would be used for such a barbaric tale. Ultimately, due to the savage method of death, the lack of remorse, and the careless outlook of human life, in addition, to the seemingly normal setting first illustrated to the readers as well as the deceiving title, Jackson’s tale nothing short of barbaric.