The Mood In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The mood at the beginning of The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson, is very different from the mood at the end of The Lottery. The story starts off with talking about how beautiful, sunny, and clear the day’s weather is. This automatically sets a mood that relates with happiness, causing you to think the rest of the story will portray cheerfulness as well. “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.” (Page 2) This specific sentence from the text gets you starting to think that maybe the villagers aren’t as happy as the weather is portraying it to be.
“Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones.” (Page 2) It seems as if the kids are having a fun time picking out stones. The feeling of all the children laughing and playing while the adults spoke cheerfully amongst each other. It seem like maybe this occasion is a good one after all.

Further on in the story, you are able to become clearly aware of their nervousness towards the lottery.

“The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?” There was a hesitation.” (Mr. Summers, page 2) They had this feeling that the stool brought on bad vibes with it, causing them to not want to touch it and become “cursed” in a sense. At this point you are able to pick up the feeling of fear amongst the villagers, leaving you to recognize that although lotteries are usually fun and exciting procedures, this one

isn’t.
Mood is one of the most important things when reading a book or story. When it comes to understanding what you’re reading, people usually look for the feeling of the book and the mood the characters are in. Once locating that, it is much easier to understand the book and the direction it’s going in. With this particular story, it only leaves small hints throughout, that may lead you to think it might not be a good kind of lottery after all. This is rather confusing, due to the fact that the mood is mostly cheerful throughout the story. This results in the ending being more suspenseful and unexpected.
At the end of this short story, it is clear that the lottery is one hundred percent bad. “ “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head.” (Tessie Hutchinson, page 13) The mood here is obviously very sad and serious, because you now understand that the person who wins the lottery is going to get stoned to death. “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” (Mrs. Hutchinson, page 13) Mrs. Hutchinson gets killed solely due to the fact that she won the lottery. The tone is now angry, distrusting and disappointing. The question remains, why would anyone have such a ritual?