The Story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - Book Report/Review Example

3 February, Consequence of living up to others’ expectations: Introduction: The story “The Lottery” by “Shirley Jackson” talks about some of the most fundamental evils of mankind that include but are not limited to hypocrisy, double faced ness and acting in the social circle. The story talks about a small village, in which people know one another. Each and every member of every family is known to everybody. They have immense interest in rituals. This can be estimated from the fact that they have preserved a tradition for over seventy seven years. Their excitement and association with the ritual reflects in their willingness to keep the draw box as it has remained for years and not amend it to make it any better because they don’t want a bit of the ritual to be altered with time. Each and every individual in the village, including the children, has wholeheartedly participated in the drawing for more than seventy seven years. Children visualize it as a merry making event in which they would gather stones, stuff them in their pockets and in the end, play the real game. “The Lottery fundamentally talks about the fact that people compromise upon what they deem correct in order to align their actions with expectations of others, though their hypocrisy never earns them true sympathy of others.” Analysis: People do tend to remain in the good books of others and they tend to achieve this by living up to other people’s expectations. This could be the most fundamental reason why each and every individual in the village regularly attended the tradition every year despite its painful theme and violent nature. There is no point denying the fact that such a tradition is evil and every human being only needs basic common sense to recognize it as such. The ritual was evil as it was much “profoundly wicked than ordinary wrongdoing” (Perrett). Likewise, it would not be wrong to say that every person in that village knew the tradition was wrong. However, there could be several reasons why it might have sustained over the course of time despite its deadly theme. The tradition might be the choice of people having more influence on others in the very region and who might wish to continue the tradition so as to gain revenge from the town mates of the lives of their loved ones they had lost in earlier sessions. An element of fear can also be felt from the fact that the ritual necessitated the presence of every individual in it while it was being conducted. The speaker made sure not one individual had missed attending it, and people would help him do that. Summer said, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work. Anybody ain’t here?” (Jackson 390). Not considering the reason why such a deadly trend might have sustained in that village, one can say that every villager attended it just to be in the good books of other villagers. If one could risk one’s life to come to attend the tradition, why not others! This generates a wave and every individual keeps drawing inside the circle of hypocrites who gather just to make one another realize that they have guts to stand the death call. The story is a great supporter of the view that people act in a certain way to come up to the standards of other people and be in their good books. However, it can be undoubtedly said that this is a clear display of hypocrisy. When an individual performs in a certain way so that others would appreciate, his/her purpose behind the act is purely worldly gain. He/she hardly ever means what he/she says or does. Jackson has proved this point by emphasizing upon the existence of love, affection and harmony among all of the villagers who later loose all affection and take anybody’s life just for the sake of a poor tradition. This speaks of the hypocrisy in their mannerism and hospitality towards one another that they formerly display in the story. In fact, the whole story fundamentally makes fun of the fake mannerism that is ingrained in the human society. An in-depth analysis of the story tells that Jackson’s emphasis on the maintenance of formality throughout the tradition is not without purpose. “Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally” (Jackson 390). Displaying respect for formality, values and humanity in such a dreadful ritual is an overt mockery of the respect people show for one another while having their hearts filled with evil machinations against one another. Respect and empathy is the demand of humanity, and people show respect and empathy towards one another, thus trying to live up to one another’s expectations, though there is often little truth in their feelings. Jackson’s attempt to make fun of such social attitudes can be estimated from the fact that it is not revealed, until in the end that the people were so eager to choose a person not to reward him/her, but to humiliate him/her and stone him/her to death. However, we can not say if or not people tend to be correct because the criteria of rationality are different for different people. It is, though, true that there can always be some justification for any action an individual displays, though not all are convinced by that justification at the same time. This is because the answer to “what is correct in a certain matter?” is different to different people depending upon their own perceptions, ideas, and personality traits influenced by their genes and various environmental factors. Thus, we can say that everyone tends to be correct though others may argue upon the justification one may provide for a certain “correct” action. Also, it can not be said that one can both be correct and live up to others’ expectations simultaneously. Considering Jackson’s commentary on the ingrained hypocrisy in the humans, not many people can be expected to have rational expectations from others. Likewise, not many people manage to come up to others expectations when they are actually correct. Also, there is little to no evidence in the story to show that both goals can be attained through one simple action. For example, in the story, Mrs. Hutchinson screams, “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right” (Jackson 393). She does not openly call it “wrong” or “inhumane act” because she knew people might get offended by use of such harsh terms. So in order to live up to their expectations, she makes use of softer words, and if we analyze, she is indeed correct when she tends to protest against the practice. Now if we regard her usage of soft words as a simple act, we are clear that it did not serve the purpose. Hence, her goals went unsatisfied by this simple action. Despite her immense hue and cry, nobody would listen or stop throwing stones at her in an attempt to live up to the expectations of one another, though there must be many among them who would have considered it incorrect deep inside their hearts. Conclusion: It can thus be concluded that every individual has his/her own criteria of correctness, though people often compromise upon their values and correctness in order to live up to others’ expectations. This promotes hypocrisy and the whole society disintegrates into individual units, that have no affiliation with one another. Mrs. Hutchinson would have been just as cruel to others as others had been to her in the end, had the lottery winner not been her. She had originally compromised upon the demand of ethics and had been a firm supporter of the cruel custom. So she deserved no mercy when she herself fell prey to it. Works cited: Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery" The story+its writer. Ann Charters ed. Boston: Bedford, 2011.   Perrett, Roy W. “Evil and human nature.” The Monist. vol 85. 2002. Web. 3 Feb. 2011. . Read More