The Lottery

When “The Lottery” was first published in 1948, it created an enormous controversy and great interest in its author, Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco, California on December 14, 1919. When she was two years old, her family moved her to Burlingame, California, where Jackson attended high school. After high school Jackson moved away to attend college at Rochester University in upstate New York but after only a short time at Rochester and, after taking off a year from school, she moved on to Syracuse University. At first, Jackson was in the School of Journalism at Syracuse but soon moved to the English Department to pursue her interest in writing. Jackson soon started publishing works in the school news paper and eventually, she and a classmate and future husband, Stanley Hyman started their own magazine under the supervision of teacher, Leonard Brown, who Jackson later described as her mentor.

After graduating from Syracuse in 1940, Jackson and college sweetheart Hyman married and moved to Vermont. In Vermont, Jackson did a lot of writing, publishing many books, children’s stories and humorous pieces, including a book about family life titled “Life among Savages.” “The Lottery” was a radical departure from the tone and contents of her other works. (http://reagan.underthesun.cc/sjackson/sjackson1.html)

In 1948, Jackson wrote what turned out to be probably her most famous short story entitled “The Lottery.” When “The Lottery” appeared in the New Yorker, it created a huge controversy and received a lot of press for its dark psychological horror. Many people believed that “The Lottery” was about how society can be cruel to individuals, the violence in society and the overwhelming need of humans to conform to the norms of society without regard to right or wrong. Many people found the story gross and disgusting because of the surprising murder at the end of the story. The story has been interpreted by many literary critics and scholars with the general conclusion that “The Lottery” is a satire on the willingness of people to engage collectively in abhorrent behavior, racial prejudice, and sexism all of which are social evils” (Barr 248-49). Jackson recalls when she first got the idea to write “The Lottery.” “The idea had come to me while I was pushing my daughter up the hill in her stroller-it was, as I say, a warm morning, and the hill...

... middle of paper ...

... a work of fiction, its underlying themes of human violence and cruelty, obedience to rituals and authority can be seen in many of the events of recent and contemporary history. The people of Jackson’s time era were not used to someone telling such graphic truths through a short story. If Jackson had written her Story today I am sure there would not be anything close to the public uproar that occurred in 1948 when the story was published.

Works Cited

Barr, Donald. “A Talent for Irony.” New York Times Book Review (1949): 4

Rpt in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 9 Detroit: Gale, 1992. 248

Crisis Group. “Crisis in Darfur.” 20 Mar. 2005

Hyman, Edgar Stanley. “Biography of a Story.” Come Along With Me. (1960):

211-25. Rpt in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol 39 Farmington Hills: Gale, 2000. 181-185

Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature The Human Experience Reading and

Writing. Ed. Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 328-334

Reagan, Bette. “Shirley Jackson – Life and Work.” 18 Mar.