The Blind Obedience in “the Lottery”

The Blind Obedience in “The Lottery” “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson written and published in 1948, takes place on June 27th in a small town of three hundred people. Villagers gather together at around ten o’clock for one of the main rituals called ‘the lottery‘, which takes place in the central square. “The lottery was conducted as were the square dances” (Jackson 31) illustrating the timely scheduled event. It is a normal day with “the fresh warmth of a full summer day” (Jackson 1). The men arte having regular conversations about “the planting, rain, tractors, and taxes” (Jackson 21) as they wait for the lottery to began. The lottery, an old tradition, is held every year and is done for the prosperity of the villagers. The secret about what the lottery entails is not revealed till the very end creating suspense for the reader. The lottery prize is actually randomly choosing a person in the village who is then violently stoned to death for the prosperity of the villagers in the hopes that their crops grow. Thus Jackson’s message of how custom and tradition can hold great power over human behavior, along with intolerable human cruelty to others and the theme of how men treat women as objects.
This story was the only work for which Shirley Jackson is known for among her two known published works. Nonetheless, this short piece is known only for the pessimistic criticism of the wilderness and cruelty of her imagination and visions in that era. Jackson’s insights and observations about man and society are disturbing and are thought to be very shocking. As Friedman states “the themes themselves are not new: evil cloaked in seeming good; prejudice and hypocrisy; loneliness and frustration; psychological studies of mind that have slipped the bond of reality” (44). “The Lottery” illustrates these themes of hypocrisy and blind obedience to ancient rituals that do not guarantee any prosperity yet they are still blindly followed. After the story was published Jackson

Bibliography: Friedman, Lenemaja. Shirley Jackson. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975. 18-21. Janeway, Elizabeth. "The Grotesque Around Us." The New York Times Book Review. 09 October 1966: 58. Oehlshaeger, Fritz. "The Stoning of Mistress Hutchinson: Meaning of Context in 'The Lottery '." Essays in Literature 2(1988): 259, 261. Park, John G. "Waiting for the End: Shirley Jackson 's 'The Sundial '." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 3(1978): 21, 22. Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The New Yorker (1948): 95-101. Lori, Voth. "Analysis of "The Lottery", a short story by Shirley Jackson." Associated Content. 21Nov, 2005. 14 Apr 2008 <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/14390/analysis_of_the_lottery_a_short_story.html>.