Small Town In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

It started out just like any other day in a typical, small town, but, unbeknownst to the reader, a vicious future awaits one of the townspeople in this twisted story.“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a compelling short story that shows no town is ever as it seems. This story concerns a small traditional town that has yet to get rid of its cruel old ways. On an annual basis, the head of each family draws a slip of paper from a shabby black box in hopes that it will not be them who is barbarically executed by stones. Jackson illustrates the theme of savagery and merciless hidden beneath a “normal” town by creating an emotional connection between the townspeople and the reader, adopting a playful tone, and using the third person limited point

The lighthearted diction makes the story that much more confusing when the reader is blindsided in the end by the heinous ceremony taking place. The story opens up by describing the setting as a happy, normal town: “Clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green”(Jackson 255). The opening tricks the reader into believing that the story will be a light, feel good read, when in fact, it is quite the opposite. Seymour Lainhoff composed a criticism stating there are patterns of savagery working beneath this happy town. She compared this story to Frazer’s The Scapegoat, where a member of the community is sacrificed in order to exorcise the evils of the old year (Lainhoff 34). In the small town it is currently a joyful period as the children have just gotten out of school for a break of leisure. Similarly, the scapegoat rite was usually preceded by a period of general license. In both stories, everything had a certain order to keep everyone happy. If someone criticized the social order, they were immediately marked as one who was against the naturalness and rightness of things. Old Man Warner proves this as he declares, “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work, live like that for a while”(Jackson

The townspeople know what is taking place, but the reader is completely ignorant towards the situation. The reader can tell that the townspeople are worried about an event in the future: “They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously”(Jackson 259). The reader does not know the extent of the terrible future, but it is obvious that the townspeople are keenly aware: “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones”(262). At this point, the reader has no idea what to expect, because the stones are just a mere object that have been disregarded throughout the story. The reader, unaware of the ending, misses the foreshadowing and reoccurring element of the stones, looking right past the fact that the boys are picking them up because the surrounding adjectives make them seem as if they are a good thing, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pocket full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones. . .” (255). The picking of the stones is completely overlooked because they are just children. What could they possibly be doing wrong? The whole ritual is so casual that no one could expect what is to happen: “Mr. Summers… with one hand resting carelessly on the black box”(257). The mood is very relaxed so the reader