Reflection over Shirley Jackson’s Lottery

Reflection over Shirley Jackson’s Lottery.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a good, classic piece of horror literature. The reader is not aware of what is happening till the very end of the short story, moreover, in the first half of it the reader is supposed to think the described society, people, town, its life are as normal as his own and contemporary to his own time. The author tells us about such things as taxes, tractors, post office and bank, teen-age club and the Halloween program in order to make us feel at home, or at least, somewhere nearby that place. The introductory description is even, modest even tiresome to a certain extent. Ordinary people, ordinary life, ordinary matters, all the action is concentrated around the mysterious lottery, but as far as nothing more is mentioned of it, the reader’s interest is quite moderate, for the reader must have grasped the idea of the whole thing long time ago, he knows what lottery is.

But then in the course of action it becomes clear that this lottery isn’t usual. The author doesn’t reveal it fully, doesn’t tell us the truth directly, but he makes hints here and there so that gradually the reader guesses: “This lottery isn’t the lottery I know. And perhaps it is far from it. And perhaps… well, is it its very opposite?” That’s where the tension takes its beginning. The reader catches the uneasiness of the story characters; he spots the first dark cloud on the bright blue sky of the story outward pastorality. As far as I can judge from my personal reading experience – it is a classical move, typical of the 20th century American horror stories (talking of my experience I mean, first of all, stories by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill). Also, in my opinion, it is a sign of literary “quality”, the author’s good taste – this concealing of the real nature of the described things till the very end. It helps the reader to become actually a real witness of the events, while receiving no any special explanation from the author (such explanations make fiction stories sound like exactly fiction stories, not real ones), while devouring the whole action just as it goes, as if watching it go, as if watching the things go their usual way. It is like watching something that you must know, but for some reason you have forgotten, and in order not to stand out of the crowd of “normal” people – as you suppose they are – you are standing aside, watching the action and trying to catch up with it.

Then suddenly it dawns upon you. You understand that the lottery in the story is the one which doesn’t have a winner, but has a looser, who gets the most undesired price. That’s where the reader starts to anticipate the dramatic events. As for me, I liked the moment, it made me feel nervous and curious at the same time, I was eager to read further to reach the denouement as soon as possible. And when I finally reached it I was horrified – thus one may conclude that the author of the horror story successfully achieved his goal.

All this was for the writer’s technique. I would also like to say a few words about the content of the story. What we read about is a classical type of human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was practiced by many peoples throughout the history of the humanity and – which is very likely – is, perhaps, still actively practiced by some tribes or secret societies in civilized countries. What the author of The Lottery does she tells us about this terrifying type of sacrifice and does it in a special way. For so many times any educated person could hear of the bloody action – from schoolbooks, TV documentaries, history teachers and frightening stories told by mates when one was a little child. But what was the use of it? Like any other events distant on either time scale or distance scale the event of human sacrifice can hardly be perceived by ordinary person in its full variety of meanings and sensations. It is hidden under the thick veil of these time and distance.

But what the author managed to do – she gave us the opportunity to witness the event as if it was happening in real world, in our time and our society, thus, making us feel what it really was like. As I have already mentioned, the author says about such usual, contemporary things like banks, taxes, tractors… We make sure that it can be no other time, but our own. And we see how usual, absolutely normal and psychically healthy people may kill each other, their neighbours, their friends, their families members and feel nothing else than that is just the necessary ritual. And no matter what we feel about it, if we are honest enough, we understand: it is just normal, it is in human’s nature – the inclination to this kind of ritual .The word “ritual” is frequently used by the author herself. This story describes the inner nature of human beings, the inner nature of this phenomenon – the ritual. One could write a book on the subject, but for I have to be short I will only say: there is no real objective division between good and bad, between virtue and atrocities. The division lies in the characteristic features of the context, in other words, what one once considered normal, at another time makes another one’s blood run cold. Everything depends. And people’s nature consists of dangerous things, I should mention. That’s all, as Oscar Wilde would say. That’s all.