The Lottery Character Analysis

800 Words2 Pages

It’s July 27th and everybody from a small community of around 300 people have gathered for its annual lottery. The leader of the community Mr. Summers leads the lottery. After going over the rules he has each of the head of households come and select a small folded white card from the inside of a box. These heads of the households include the fathers of the families, except in two cases where the father is deceased which leads to the oldest son being the head of the household, and a wife being the lottery participant because of her husband’s broken leg. After everyone has selected their cards Mr. Summers instructs them to open their cards. All of the cards are blank except one with a large black dot. Bill Hutchinson was the man who had the …show more content…

Summers as to why she is late, “"Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said. grinning, "Wouldn 't have me leave m 'dishes in the sink, now, would you. Joe?," and soft laughter ran through the crowd.”(Jackson) Even during the lottery selection she seems happy and not the slightest bit concerned with the proceedings of the lottery. Her showing these types of moods during the lottery show her support the lottery and proves that she has no problems with conducting the lottery. It is only after her husband is selected that she is not supportive of the lottery. This original support of the lottery leaves her has a major part of the blame for the action of the …show more content…

She showed up late to the lottery which makes it seem like it is not important to her, she later shows she doesn’t take it seriously when she shoves her husband and tells him not to be nervous when selecting his card from the box. After everybody opens their card and it is revealed that her husband has open the one with the black dot, Tessie reacts in a very different way than before. “Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn 't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn 't fair!"” ( Jackson) It now seems as if the lottery is a huge deal and she doesn’t want anything to do with the results of having her husband draw the card with the black dot. Tessie pushing her husband and her yelling about her husband being selected can be seen as Tessie disobeying the social order that is in the village. She does this by disrespecting her husband and then questioning the decision of Mr. Summers. (Capitalist Society in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Comparative Literature) It is finally proven that she finds the lottery a big deal when she is speechless once the rest of her family show that they don’t have the black dot on their card during the drawing for the

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