ellauri133.html on line 882: Upon the morning of the lottery, the townspeople gather shortly before 10 a.m. in order to have everything done in time for lunch. First, the heads of the extended families each draw one slip from the box, but wait to unfold them until all the slips have been drawn. Bill Hutchinson gets the marked slip, meaning that his family has been chosen. His wife Tessie protests that Mr. Summers rushed him through the drawing, but the other townspeople dismiss her complaint. Since the Hutchinson family consists of only one household, a second drawing to choose one household within the family is skipped.
ellauri133.html on line 884: For the final drawing, one slip is placed in the box for each member of the household: Bill, Tessie, and their three children. Each of the five draws a slip, and Tessie gets the marked one. The townspeople pick up the gathered stones and begin throwing them at her as she screams about the injustice of the lottery.
ellauri270.html on line 335: Just as Mr. Summers stops chanting in order to start the lottery, Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson arrives in the square. She tells Mrs. Delacroix that she “clean forgot what day it was.” She says she realized it was the 27th and came running to the square. She dries her hands on her apron. Mrs. Delacroix reassures her that Mr. Summers and the others are still talking and she hasn’t missed anything.
ellauri270.html on line 337: Tessie Hutchinson’s late arrival establishes her character in a few sentences: she cares little about the lottery and the pomp and circumstance of the ritual. She is different from the other villagers, and thus a potential rebel against the structure of the village and the lottery.
ellauri270.html on line 339: Mrs. Hutchinson looks through the crowd for her husband and children. The crowd parts for her as she joins them at the front, and some point out her arrival to her husband. Mr. Summers cheerfully says that he’d thought they’d have to start without Tessie. Tessie jokes back that Mr. Summers wouldn’t have her leave her dirty dishes in the sink, would he? The crowd laughs.
ellauri270.html on line 341: Tessie joins her family in the crowd, as all the villagers stand with their households, but her sense of humor sets her apart from the rest. She is clearly well-liked and appreciated by the villagers, which makes her eventual fate all the more surprising and disturbing.
ellauri270.html on line 359: Mrs. Graves watches Mr. Graves draw their family’s slip of paper. Throughout the crowd, men are holding slips of paper, nervously playing with them in their hands. “Hutchinson” is called, and Tessie tells her husband to “get up there,” drawing laughs from her neighbors.
ellauri270.html on line 361: The men’s nervousness foreshadows the lottery’s grim outcome. Tessie acts at odds with the pervasive mood, drawing laughs from the crowd. Tessie does not question the lottery at this point, and treats the proceedings lightheartedly—from a position of safety.
ellauri270.html on line 371: Finally, the last man has drawn. Mr. Summers says, “all right, fellows,” and, after a moment of stillness, all the papers are opened. The crowd begins to ask who has it. Some begin to say that it’s Bill Hutchinson. Mrs. Dunbar tells her son to go tell his father who was chosen, and Horace leaves. Bill Hutchinson is quietly staring down at his piece of paper, but suddenly Tessie yells at Mr. Summers that he didn’t give her husband enough time to choose, and it wasn’t fair.
ellauri270.html on line 373: Mr. Summer’s casual language and camaraderie with the villagers contrast with what is at stake. Tessie’s reaction is the first explicit sign of something horrifying at the heart of the lottery. She is as outspoken in her anger as she was in her humor—although rather too late, and it’s assumed she wouldn’t argue if someone else had been chosen. Bill resignedly accepts the power of the tradition.
ellauri270.html on line 375: Mrs. Delacroix tells Tessie to “be a good sport,” and Mrs. Graves reminds her “all of us took the same chance.” Bill Hutchinson tells his wife to “shut up.” Mr. Summers says they’ve got to hurry to get done in time, and he asks Bill if he has any other households in the Hutchinsons’ family. Tessie yells that there’s her daughter Eva and Eva’s husband Don, and says that they should be made to take their chance, too. Mr. Summers reminds her that, as she knows, daughters draw with their husband’s family. “It wasn’t fair,” Tessie says again.
ellauri270.html on line 377: This passage shows the self-serving survival instinct of humans very clearly. Each person who speaks up is protecting his or her own skin, a survival instinct that Jackson shows to be natural to all the villagers, and by extension all humans. Tessie is willing to throw her daughter and son-in-law into harm’s way to have a better chance of saving herself. The other women are relieved to have not been chosen—no one speaks up against the lottery until they themselves are in danger.
ellauri270.html on line 381: Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves’s calm continuation of the lottery’s ritual shows that they are numb to the cruelty of the proceedings. Tessie’s protests imply that she doesn’t see the choice of the marked slip of paper as fate or some kind of divine decree, but rather as a human failing. Perhaps she sees, too late, that the lottery is only an arbitrary ritual that continues simply because a group of people have unthinkingly decided to maintain it.
ellauri270.html on line 385: Tessie’s protests have shown the reader that the outcome of the lottery will not be good. Little Davy’s inclusion reinforces the cruelty of the proceedings and the coldness of its participants. Little Davy is put at risk even when he is unable to understand the rituals or to physically follow the instructions. But so what? Is this one more case of "free will" stuffed down your throat?
ellauri270.html on line 387: Nancy Hutchinson is called forward next, and her school friends watch anxiously. Bill Jr. is called, and he slips clumsily, nearly knocking over the box. Tessie gazes around angrily before snatching a slip of paper from the box. Bill selects the final slip. The crowd is silent, except for a girl who is overheard whispering that she hopes it’s not Nancy. Then Old Man Warner says that the lottery isn’t the way it used to be, and that people have changed.
ellauri270.html on line 391: Mr. Summers instructs the Hutchinsons to open the papers. Mr. Graves opens little Davy’s and holds it up, and the crowd sighs when it is clearly blank. Nancy and Bill Jr. open theirs together and both laugh happily, as they hold up the blank slips above their heads. Mr. Summers looks at Bill, who unfolds his paper to show that it is blank. “Tessie,” Mr. Summers says. Bill walks over to his wife and forces the slip of paper from her hand. It is the marked slip of paper with the pencil dot Mr. Summers made the night before.
ellauri270.html on line 393: The inhumanity of the villagers, which has been developed by repeated exposure to the lottery and the power of adhering to tradition, still has some arbitrary limits—they are at least relieved that a young child isn’t the one chosen. They show no remorse for Tessie, however, no matter how well-liked she might be. Even Tessie’s own children are happy to have been spared, and relieved despite their mother’s fate. Jackson builds the sense of looming horror as the story approaches its close. WTF, Tessie is clearly the odd one out, so the outcome of the lottery was fortunate!
ellauri270.html on line 401: The children pick up stones, and Davy Hutchinson is handed a few sharp pebbles in a paper cone. Tessie Hutchinson holds out her arms desperately, saying, “it isn’t fair,” as the crowd advances toward her. A flying stone hits her on the side of her head. Old Man Warner urges everyone forward, and Steve Adams and Mrs. Graves are at the front of the crowd. “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Tessie screams, and then the villagers overwhelm her.
ellauri270.html on line 403: By having children (even Tessie’s own son) involved in stoning Tessie, Jackson aims to show that cruelty and violence are primitive and inherent aspects of human nature—not something taught by society. Tessie’s attempts to protest until the end show the futility of a single voice standing up against the power of tradition and a majority afraid of nonconformists. Jackson ends her story with the revelation of what actually happens as a result of the lottery, and so closes on a note of both surprise and horror. The seemingly innocuous, ordinary villagers suddenly turn violent and bestial, forming a mob that kills one of their own with the most primitive weapons possible—and then happily going home to supper.
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