An Examination of “the Lottery” and How This Disturbing Theme Applies

In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, there is a grim, dark side to this apparently ordinary village (Jackson, 2004). In this tale, Jackson effectively uses irony which the reader does not fully recognize or appreciate until the end of the story. This story causes us to ask ourselves how these people could allow something this monstrous to happen to someone that they call friend and neighbor. They not only allow it, but actively participate in it. In this summary, I will be examining the story The Lottery and also looking at world issues pertaining to human rights and what responsibility we have as human beings to try and put a stop to these brutal practices that are accepted in some parts of the world. The setting for this story is very deceiving. It takes place in a small village on a warm, sunny day. School has just let out for the summer and everyone in the village seems to be gathering for some sort of festivities. Children are playing and the townspeople are standing around talking to each other, much like friends and neighbors do everywhere. This gives the reader the illusion of a carefree, summer’s day, with some sort of perfectly ordinary town function or celebration about to take place. A picturesque setting, however, can mask an underlying wickedness. We cannot fathom from this brief glimpse of the town what kind of evil these perfectly ordinary people are capable of. Irony comes into play as we listen to the villagers’ conversations with each other. They are conversing about mundane things like the planting of the crops and taxes; these are the casual conversations the reader might overhear anywhere. The third person narrator says that they smile rather than laugh at quiet jokes, giving us a hint that maybe the occasion is not quite as festive as it first appears. There may be a somber undertone to the gathering that we do not know about yet. While everyone seems to be friendly and genuinely like each other, we do not know that they are gathered here

Cited: “Honour” killings of women. (n.d.). Retrieved June 7, 2007, from http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html. Jackson, S. (2007). The lottery. In A. Charters, The story and its writers (pp 365-371). New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Stoning to death in Iran: A crime against humanity. (n.d.). Retrieved June 7, 2007, from http://www.iran-e-azad.org/stoning/women.html.