The Dark Nature Of Society In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

A lottery has always been described as a prosperous event for anybody who has ever played. However, it is not always as flourishing as it may seem. Shirley Jackson, the author of an enticing short story called The Lottery, proves this by displaying how a different culture views a lottery system much differently than your average person might think. This story is a riveting tale of a small village that plays an annual lottery game every summer by drawing names randomly out of an ancient black box. Despite its deceiving title, the ending of this novel is not what one might expect in the slightest way. In fact, the randomly chosen winner, Tessie Hutchinson, get stoned by everyone in the village. Due to the tradition of this village, this occurs
At the beginning of the story before the reader even knows what is going on, there is a scene involving children that is illustrated as such, “They stood together away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed” (Jackson 346). This excerpt epitomizes the nature that humans possess once they conform to the ways of society. The stones gathered in piles were the stones that they collected to stone the chosen winner of the lottery for that year and the villagers were casually joking as if it was no big deal at all. Prior to the lottery families were planning what they were going to do next after it was all over. Preparing to move on with their lives as if nothing had ever happened. This is exposed at the beginning of the story when Jackson portrays,”. . . the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner” (346). This is astonishing because all the people will completely ignore what occurred and move on as if all is well. In addition, Jackson makes it known that the lottery has been around for a very long time by vividly describing the black box. The fact that it has been around longer than the oldest person in the village, Old Man Warner. Assuming the
The fact that this village was remote and generally uninfluenced by any outside sources proves that they created their own sense of morality and tradition to go along with it. Although it does give reference to other villages getting rid of the lottery system, characters in this story claim that getting rid of the lottery would be a poor choice and foolish. However, this is only briefly mentioned and there is no evidence as to why that would be negative to the village. There is also no evidence as to why they think the lottery benefits them. Once again, it is just a blind tradition that they all follow. Furthermore, Jackson depicts the setting of the town at the beginning of the story as the most normal day imaginable. It opens up by saying, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day” (Jackson 345). This setting description is rather disturbing after reading the story in its entirety. After analyzing the setting and realizing how normal of a day this was for everyone in the village, the reader can truly grasp that not a single person felt an ounce of remorse for what occurred at the end of the story. All of the people grew up with the lottery and have seen it come and go year after year and all of them are numb to the horrible nature of what it is, a death game. Also, there were no connections to any sort of religious