Death In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Death at a Lottery “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson opens with the descriptions of how the day was beginning and the describing the ordinary villagers and the pleasant and hot weather. The title itself gives the reader the general subject matter about the story. The reader automatically with the help of the title and the introduction of “The Lottery” provides them the thought this would be a pleasant story with a happily ever after, but the contrary it was anything but. The atmosphere of the town’s square is filled with cheerfulness and serenity even though the villagers already have knowledge of the purpose and conclusion of the lottery. The scenery creates the feel of a normal town on a hot summer day but on the contrary it’s more than
The villagers take no good care for it yet they keep up with their menacing traditions. She gives descriptions of the appearance of the black box and how shabby it was and it almost didn’t look like a box but something completely different. The villagers had no memory of the ritual salutes or the official chant and had no regard for caring for the lottery box, and the villagers previously lost the original box they, yet they kept their customs of giving the lottery winner just what they “won”. Jackson gives the story in third-person limited making the story more mysterious and hiding the ending will be. More and more suspense is led because of the lack of detail of why and what the lottery was, and what the winner will win yet the reader is given information on the box of what the lottery was held in and how the lottery was made up of (by heads of families and the members in it). The Hutchinson family was picked and the ending comes near after Tessie Hutchinson is picked as the winner; we finally realized what the lottery was and why Tessie was so upset about winning. Death at a Lottery was the unexpected prize for Tessie Hutchinson caused by the villagers throwing their
I thought that this story was going to be a happy tale about a villager winning the lottery since the first thought that runs through the reader’s head about the title is lottery money or winning some great boisterous prize but instead there is a gruesome ending. I felt shocked over the ending and the fact that the town has kept a horrific tradition and am so calm about it. Jackson topples our expectations of the story’s ending and gives us a grim surprise. The town is accustoming to the use of gruesome violence that it is pretty much a normal tradition. Even the people along with their actions are horrible; children and friends stoning their beloved. Young Davy Hutchinson practically killing his mother along with one of Tessie’s good friends, Mrs. Dunbar shocks me to see them acting casual about killing someone they are so familiar with. Tessie was willing to even have her daughter take a chance in being stoned knowing she is married into another family makes me feel like she deserves it since she was selling out her own family along with her husband selling her out to the crowd too without any hesitation. The fact that the villagers will go about their day as if murdering an innocent woman was a daily ritual baffles me into thinking about the