The Lottery
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“The Lottery”
“The Lottery” was quite disturbing to read. It is an very unusual story that has an ending that will have you baffled. You will want to reread certain parts to see if there is anything thing that you could have missed. The title of the short story is also misleading. In most cases the lottery is a good thing. People don’t win punishment and lotteries don’t hurt them. But in this story it does just that. The author did a great job of telling how anyone and everyone can follow tradition blindly. It is dangerous not to have a mind of your own and to just follow the crowd even if you don’t understand on agree on why something is happening.
The first thing that catches the eye while reading this is when the little boys start stuffing their pockets with stones when they arrive there. “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (264). This is a great example of the mere blindness in following ridiculous traditions. The young boys who started getting stones ready as soon as they got there could not have fully understood the tradition. They could have not understood the complete purpose of the stones. They have seen the adults pick stones in years before and have followed in their footsteps without question as if it were some sort of game.
The official of the lottery is usually kept in very high standards. As if they are playing the act of God. “Others believed that he was suppose to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse” (266). In some ways Mr. Summers did play God. He was in charge of the black box. He was the one who conducted the lottery and it was his place to make sure that everything went according to plan. The village looked up to him and he could have at any moment spoke up and said that this ritual did not need to take place anymore and the people would have probably followed. He played God in the sense that he had the power in some ways to stop what was going on but he choose to let someone die each and every year.
Jackson includes references to farming that may be due to the association between farming and tradition. Many people do believe that farming is a way of life that is handed down from generation to generation. The men in “The Lottery” are “speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (264). The most obvious reason for this reference is that the ritual performed in the story is supposed to have an effect on the harvest. “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”(268) used to be a saying heard in the community. The abundance of their harvest supposedly depended upon their performing the ritual of the lottery.
Bill Hutchinson drew the paper with the black spot. After that each person in the family had to draw. Bill’s wife Tessie was then the one who drew the paper with the black spot signifying that she would be the one that would get stoned to death. Tessie is the one person that you would think wouldn’t get the black spot. She was actually late getting to the square. “Clean forgot what day it was” (266) she said to Mrs. Delacroix and they both laughed. She had a very carefree attitude towards the lottery and she does not see the importance in it that many other people do. She could not even remember what day it was on and would