Lotteries In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Lotteries are the picture of money for most people. Lotteries are often viewed as a great thing, winning the lottery means winning cash, but in reality a lottery is just a raffle. It is a process ruled by chance. Winning the lottery could be from the best reward to the cruelest one ever. In 1948, Shirley Jackson wrote the short story “The Lottery” to show there is pointless violence and brutality in humans’ lives and how society accepts it. She used the story to show how people will join senseless traditions because their friends or family is doing it. Shirley Jackson, in her short story “The Lottery” uses seemingly ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to emphasize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and

may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.
Jackson’s setting which on the surface appears to be light-hearted and commonplace masks the shock and horror of the story’s ending.

Her use of the peaceful setting foreshadows the horrendous future events, showing humans are only civilized on the outside. On the day the lottery takes place the sky was “clear and sunny” and there was “fresh warmth of a full- summer day.” These phrases create imagery in the reader’s head that it is a beautiful day. This raises no suspicion of the horrendous ending. It is used to show how even on beautiful days humans find a way to make it unpleasant and dreadful. When the townspeople were arriving at the square, the children “broke into boisterous play.” The school year had just ended and their “talk was still of the classroom and the teacher.” The children’s actions show their liveliness and their carefreeness. They are still talking about school making the atmosphere blithe. Their actions create the image of happiness. Jackson also uses this normal situation to show that even though the actions may seem normal, there is always a hidden meaning to it. Their actions also raise the question on why they are collecting rocks. At the beginning the reader does not sense anything by their actions, but it does foreshadow what they are planning to do. Before the lottery started Mrs. Hutchinson arrived late and everyone “separated good-humoredly” to allow her to be with her spouse, when Mr. Summers cracks a joke about the situation “soft laughter

ran through the crowd.” The crowd is not only indifferent to the situation, but they are welcoming the lottery. The townspeople are not taking the lottery seriously enough until the person is chosen, but rather laughing and joking about it. It gives the atmosphere that the story is going to be joyful; this does not cause suspicion in the story. Jackson uses the setting to create a light-hearted atmosphere to show a devastating ending. The use of an unsettling setting and atmosphere shows that humans are really barbaric inside, even though they may not appear so. When all the slips of paper are taken out of the box, “for a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened.” This creates a suspenseful atmosphere foreshadowing the horrible ending; all of the townspeople are looking at their papers wondering if they were the ones chosen. These words create the image of nervousness and seriousness. If this were a happy lottery the people would not have waited a moment in silence rather they will be anxious to open it as soon as possible. Jackson uses this scene to start the malicious nature of humans in the story. When Tessie Hutchinson is chosen as the person who has officially won the lottery, the townspeople and their “pile of stones… [were] ready.” One of the stones is “so large, [they] had to pick it up with two hands.” The people were already ready to kill. Even though they looked normal on the outside; they were ready and anxious to kill her. The townspeople were already barbaric by having these stone ready to throw at the chosen person although they seem sane throughout the whole lottery. The atmosphere is thrilling because they are ready to kill her. Also during this scene the children are not left out, “the children had stones ready.” The townspeople even “gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.” The children had already collected the stones for the lottery. The suspense is great here because it is not expected that the children witness such a gruesome sight. The townspeople are changing the children to keep their tradition. Children are known to be innocent and naïve. The townspeople are teaching these children to be cruel and brutal to their fellow citizens while showing them to act civilized. In other words, Jackson does a wonderful job of starting her story with a light-hearted setting to hide the savage in the townspeople.
In her short story Jackson’s characters are used to show how humans may appear sane and civilized on the outside, but are truly malicious and savage on the inside.

Jackson’s characters appear to be civilized on the outside to show how humans are on the inside. The lottery in this village takes two hours this “allow[s] the villagers to get home for noon dinner”. Jackson starts off the story saying how the lottery ritual takes place, her use of words does not raise any suspension on what is going to happen next. After the lottery all the townspeople are in order; they are not affected by it. They care more about their dinner than what happened. As the people start meeting at the square the men start “speaking of planting and rain, tractors, and taxes” and their wives “exchanged bits of gossip”. This shows how ordinary they are. It also does not raise any impression of anything horrible happening; it just gives the vibe of a social gathering. It does not raise any hint of suspicion, as if implying this is happy harmless event just like everything else done as a festivity. The people act as if they were in a social gathering and not as if they were part of a murderous mob. Also, when Mr. Summers arrives late he says “Little late today folks” and when Mrs. Hutchinson arrives late she also says “Clean forgot what day it was”. The townspeople show that this is an ordinary event capable of being forgotten. The reader does not realize this is a harmful event, but rather thinks of it

to be a happy one because they appear pleasant and affable. They do not show any barbaric actions or any reason to imply that the lottery is a horrible thing. Jackson uses her character’s unsettling actions and behaviors to show how truly corrupt and malice they are inside. When the lottery has started the townspeople are “quiet”, they are “wetting their lips”, and “not looking around”. Their fidgeting actions foreshadow the cruel event that is to happen. It shows they are nervous to be chosen for the lottery. This is not normal if the event were to be a happy one. This is already showing they do not want to be chosen, but they would want someone else to be. They don’t want people to be cruel to them, but they don’t mind being cruel to someone else. Another example is when Old Man Warner talks about how the young folks are crazy for quitting the lottery, he explains that there “was always a lottery” and that it is “bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody”. This shows how some people actually support senseless killing of an innocent person. He sticks with senseless tradition because he believes it brings prosperity to the town. They don’t care of the killing of an innocent person, they just do it because everyone else is doing it and the elders still approve of it. It shows just how cold-hearted humans are when they are under pressure. Another example of this is when Tessie has been chosen and the townspeople prepare to attack her, she “screamed, and then they were upon her.” This proves they had no pity for her. They just wanted to get the lottery over with and killed her. Showing how senseless this tradition is and how they are still willing to do it. This shows how ruthless humans are; they don’t care about how wrong what they are doing is, but rather on how fun and the pressure they have of doing it. When under pressure, humans become uncivilized becoming their true selves, just like Mrs. Hutchinson. In brief, Jackson used her characters to show how cruel and bestial humans are when they may appear to be pleasant and polite.
Jackson proves her point by this story; humans may appear to be courteous and polite, but they truly are savage on the inside. In 1948, Jackson’s own experience of human brutality led to her ending of this story. She knew millions of people were suffering, but no one helped them. Instead they joined in. She wanted to show the word is a cruel and unconcerned place. The name of this story “The Lottery” was meant to intrigue the reader because lotteries are known as prizes raffled. No one would suspect a horrible ending in this story. Not all lotteries are always a pleasant thing.