The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - Essay Example

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story depicting the American life of a contemporarysmall town. The short story was first published in the year 1948 through The New Yorker. This short story is considered to be one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature. It is most popularly known as being a chilling tale of conformity gone mad. The initial response to the story was negative which was very surprising for Jackson and also the story was banned in the South Africa Union. Although since that time the story is accepted and known to be one of the classic American short stories and it received great amount of critical appreciation and also media adaptations. This story was later taught to the middle school and high school students. The story talks about an American town which has an annual ritual known as “The lottery”. It is based on a life of a small village with 300 people living in it. All the residents become extremely excited along with nervous on the 27th June. Children get together and gather stones and all the adults assemble and become united for their great annual event which is linked with their local tradition which is about practicing to ensure that a good harvest is done that year (Jackson, Reg S, 1983). The process of the lottery starts by the head of each family moving forward and drawing a small slip of paper from a black box. This time Bill Hutchinson and his family were picked for drawing a small slip of paper coming out of the black box. Tessie Hutchinson who is the wife of Bill got the market slip (Jackson, S 1982). As per the process and tradition all the villages that have stone will begin to surround Tessie and finally Tessie was stoned to death by the time the story ends. Tessie knew that the situation was extremely unfair but sadly she could do anything about it. The tradition basically is that the lottery preparations start a night before, the task of making the paper slips is assigned to Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers who need to note down the list of all the families. Once the names are properly written down, the slips are kept in a black box which is safely places in the coal company for a night. Everything is closed till 10 am so that everyone can participate in the lottery tradition which takes place around the lunch time. For the first round, men who are drawing the slips need to be over sixteen years and then later on, in the second round the families draw slip no matter whatever age they are of. After the slips were picked, they were allowed to fly off the wind followed by the most brutal act of human sacrifice which this name Tessie Hutchinson had to give. Initially when the novel was published, it was considered to be an extremely controversial novel. The readers were not ready to accept the brutal and cruel reality which was explained through an implicit work of Shirley Jackson. The rituals and the traditions which were explained in the novel about the America’s small town were not something people wanted to accept or openly admit (Jackson, S, Joyce C. Oates, 2010). This cruel story is about the event of lottery which ends up in taking life of poor and innocent people without any solid reason or justification. All the villagers as per the short story gathered at the square to participate in the lottery which was conducted by Mr. Summer. All the children arrive first and gather stones as their parents ask them to do so. Tessie Hutchinson unaware of her sad and unfair future arrives late and starts talking to Mrs. Delacroix. As soon as the process begins and Hutchinson family is selected, Tessie starts protesting and thus the readers here understand that though the name says “The Lottery” the story is not about the family wining money or something big, it is surely something unpleasant and something which no one would want. After the family is selected in the first round, the second round makes the entire family to pick slips. There were five members in Hutchinson family and all of them start to pick slips from the black box. Tessie ends up in drawing a slip of paper with black dot in the center and this makes things clear, as all the village people with stones start walking towards her. The prize of the lottery becomes clear here which is stoning to death punishment to the person of the family who has taken out a slip with a black dot in the center. Tess protests but the villagers who totally believe in this tradition and not humanity starts to attack her. The village people have no sense of humanity in them as they do not care about the fact that they are about to kill someone so brutally without any reason. An innocent death is about to occur but this is of no concern for the cruel village people who blindly follow the traditions and customers which are made already and followed (Fadiman, C, Jackson, and Guy, 1980) This cruel incident takes place every year in the village during the summer, where families gather in the town square which is situated between the bank and the post office. This lottery process which brings sad death of a poor innocent person takes place in many villages of America. Big villages with a large population and many people takes about two days to start the lottery process and they complete it in many days as their population is extremely large, this particular village on the other hand has a small population which is of about three hundred people, thus they start early and complete the process in few hours. All the children firstly gather at the Bobby Martin to fill their pockets with stone, smooth and sound stones are picked and then all these stones are kept in one corner of the square in one giant pile. These stones are gathered and kept on the side by Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix. The girls with the stones, however keeps the stones with them. These people gather together and start talking about general stuff about weather, planting and taxes. They are very casual, with jokes being shared and people smiling too which at the start of the story can be deceptive as no reader can guess that the lottery for which these people gather is basically such a sad thing death of an innocent person. (Cox, Martha H , 1966). All the women gather together and the children are busy obeying their parents. This sad process is run by Mr. Summers who is into coal business and is in charge of all the events which takes place in the village. All the people of the village feel sorry for him as he has no children and his wife irritates him and nags him all the time. Once he arrives with the black box which signifies death of an innocent person, the papers in the box are mixed well. The original material which was used for the lottery was lost long time ago, however the black box was there and was used as a living memory.th box is old and shabby but is used as it means something being traditional for the village people (Gioia, Dana, and R S. Gwynn.,2006). The village is so blind that they are not aware of the inhuman consequences of this act. People are not ready to give off this idea and they feel it is important and traditional for them. REFERENCE Jackson, Shirley, and Reg Sandland. The Lottery. Mankato, Minn: Creative Education, 1983. Print Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery: And Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982. Print. Jackson, Shirley, Joyce C. Oates, and Shirley Jackson. Novels and Stories: The Lottery, the Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Other Stories and Sketches. New York, N.Y: Library of America, 2010. Print. Fadiman, Clifton, Shirley Jackson, and Guy . Maupassant. What Is a Short Story?: A Discussion by Clifton Fadiman ; Necklace ; Discussion of Shirley Jackson's the Lottery. Chicago, Ill: EBEC, 1980 Cox, Martha H. Image and Value: An Invitation to Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966. Print. Gioia, Dana, and R S. Gwynn. The Art of the Short Story. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. Print. Read More