Symbolism And Allegory In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson short story “the Lottery” is a striking subtle tale about a small village that practices a perverse ritual passed down from generation to generation that was rooted in belief that it might grant the village a successful harvest. With small hints of irony and surprise, Shirley Jackson brings about an awareness that gives brief glimpse at what happens when a small village carries on such an ancient tradition that becomes warped overtime. When taking a closer look at the story fine details, Jackson’s boasts with fine examples of symbolism and allegory in relation to tradition and blind violence.

First published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker, “The Lottery” caused major controversy due to Jackson’s implicit critique

of America’s small towns and the inhumane underlying rituals and values that outraged magazine readers to the point that many of them cancelled their subscriptions. “The Lottery” is based Shirley Jackson’s life in North Bennington, a small town in Vermont (Friedman).
Briefly summarizing, the story begins with a warm day in late June where villagers gather in the square to participate in a lottery run by Mr.

Summers. The children are described stacking and piling up stones while people assemble around the town square. People chatter and gossip while preparation for the lottery is happening. Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson arrives late and chats briefly with her friend, Mrs. Delacroix apologizing say “I almost forgot what day it was”. Mr. Summers calls each head of the household forward to a black wooden box, where each selects a slip of paper. Once the men have chosen, Mr. Summers allows everyone to open the paper and see who has been selected. When it is discovered that her husband Mr. Bill Hutchinson has been selected, Tessie immediately starts protesting. Mr. Summers places five slips of paper into the box, representing each member of the family and making the family draw out the black box. Mrs. Hutchinson draws a slip of paper with a big black dot in the center. The villagers advance on her grabbing a stone from pile the children made earlier in the story. The dark truth behind the lottery is revealed, Tessie protests “It’s just not fair” as the villagers stone her to death

(Jackson).
The Lottery gives both obvious and complex illustrations to symbolism.

With the title of “The Lottery”, the reader would reference the term lottery with a positive connotation; the twist at the end of the story upsets the reader’s expectations. Annual traditions like Easter, Christmas, or even 4th of July involve event such as egg hunts, tree and light decoration, and fireworks show. Most communities are comfortable these yearly rituals without knowing the origins of these practices which leads to the point of how tradition obscures the history of public ritual. The three ironic names of the character are Mr. Summer, Mr. Graves, and Old Man Warner. Mr. Summers having the positive attitude associated with season, Mr. Graves in his last name and role in authorizing Mr. Summer in conducting the ritual that reward the “winner” to their graves. Lastly, Old Man Warner being a witness to an event that’s older the man himself (Brooks).

The reader would associate lotteries with awesome prizes, it’s almost expected that these annual celebrations also seem pleasant. The lottery appears harmless at first, but with the bizarre behavior of children piling stones and Old Man Warner words concerning the civic event and the importance of

tradition.
The lottery serves allegory of the community, the rules and proceedings corresponds to real-life elements of village society; the author meticulously gives the characters symbolic names which give evidence to the reader that Jackson carefully develops the lottery as an allegory.
The lottery’s initially breakdowns village’s residents by household, making the head (the man) of the family draw for their household forcing the whole group to abide by what the head draws. The norm that is presented here is that each man is literally choosing not only his fate, but also the fate of his entire family. Women have no say in this situation, which reflects the overall patriarchal nature of the traditional values of this village society. While the men get to do the active choosing, their wives are absolutely willing participants in the event. Women are placed inferior status as most traditions (Kosenko). This is true in that most people are all usually broken down by household. The household is usually the first unit of social interaction. It also sometime considered a social norm to abide by the conditions of our households as a whole and the metaphorical strips of paper that our parents draw. By showing up in that town square, Mrs. Hutchinson as much as everyone including Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves has automatically consented to participate, leaving each member open to the small possibility of catastrophic failure. The lottery not only symbolizes life’s chances, but also the sudden, unexpected nature of death.
The origins of the lottery remains unknown, Old Man Warner even admits that he doesn’t really know when it began. His association of the lottery with the abundance of corn suggests that it began as some kind of overt human sacrifice which would result in plentiful corn harvests. In the story, Old Man Warner mentions “the original paraphernalia for the lottery has been lost long ago” and suggest that “there used to be a song, a speech, a ritual salute” (Jackson). Ultimately, without anyone knowing the full history of how the lottery came about, the ritual loses it logic resulting to generation after generation blindly committing manslaughter due to a sense of tradition in fear of the consequences should the lottery ceases to exist. In the story, when Mr. Graves helps Davy Hutchinson select a strip of paper from the black box and the boys collecting their stones demonstrates that they are being trained to see the lottery as their parents perceive it. The reader can realize that at the current point in the village’s history, the lottery is no longer a practice in agricultural fertility, but has become a twisted self-perpetuating instruction of organized savagery that longer needs explanation.
In conclusion, Shirley Jackson story provides insight to the possibilities of what should happen when such a tradition such as the lottery it taken with such enthusiasm blindly catering mankinds essential nature to be brutal and formal acknowledgment for murder that might not otherwise be allowed (Janeaway). Although it might not be Jackson’s intentions, she proposes the reader to wonder whether the experience of mass violence on that scales in a way that society breeds violence into every new generation of young people.