ellauri080.html on line 594: Mary Ann Summers, a wholesome farm-girl from Winfield, Kansas who won the trip and tour in a lottery
ellauri133.html on line 847: This anecdote has been found to be untrue. Jackson exaggerated the ease with which the story was published; in “Biography of a Story,” she said The New Yorker published her story a mere few weeks after she submitted it, and that they only made one change—the date of the lottery. In fact, New Yorker editor Gus Lobrano suggested several changes to the story via phone, including additions to dialogue and action, which Jackson made.
ellauri133.html on line 880: Details of contemporary small-town American life are embroidered upon a description of an annual ritual known as "the lottery". In a small village of about 300 residents (hmm, just the number of thankyou letters Shirley got, see above), the locals are in an excited yet nervous mood on June 27. Children gather stones, as the adult townsfolk assemble for their annual event, which in the local tradition is apparently practiced to ensure a good harvest (Old Man Warner quotes an old proverb: "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon").
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.
ellauri133.html on line 886: Where's the injustice? It was a fair lottery. BTW, Shirley's short story was an omen: Shirley did get stoned for real in the end.
ellauri155.html on line 793: To put it simply: though being good doesn´t entitle you to heaven, being bad is a sure way to end in hell. By being good you can at least enter the lottery. It makes no difference game theoretically whether God arranged his lottery before or after the fact. The information sets are just the same. Game theoretically, being good continues to carry a slight positive utility toward the jackpot.
ellauri158.html on line 53: What Clarke argues is that the Newtonian natural system and the findings that stem from it are incompatible with the “blind necessity” that characterizes both the Epicurean and Spinozistic world picture, precisely because this system implies the existence of an immaterial and wise Creator. What the fuck? It is a deterministic system par excellence. Ach, tarkoitatte alkuehtoja. Vanha antroposentrinen jumalatodistus: jos jumala ei olis säätänyt kaikkea näin hyvin, ei olis meitäkään. Tää ei voi olla sattumaa! Maailmamme ei voi olla 1 ziljoonasta sokeasta yrityxestä! Vai voiko se? This lottery is unfair, huutaa Shirley Jackson kiukkuisena, kun kivet lentävät. Shirley putkahti esille albumissa 133 ja putkahtaa uudelleen esille albumissa 270.
ellauri270.html on line 311: The morning of June 27th is a sunny, summer day with blooming flowers and green grass. In an unnamed village, the inhabitants gather in the town square at ten o’clock for an event called “the lottery.” In other towns there are so many people that the lottery must be conducted over two days, but in this village there are only three hundred people, so the lottery will be completed in time for the villagers to return home for noon dinner.
ellauri270.html on line 313: This seemingly idyllic beginning establishes a setting at odds with the violent resolution of the story. Early details, such as sun and flowers, all have positive connotations, and establish the theme of the juxtaposition of peace and violence. The lottery is mentioned in the first paragraph, but not explained until the last lines.
ellauri270.html on line 319: Mr. Summers, the man who conducts the lottery, arrives. He also organizes the river dances, the purity pledges, and the Halloween program, because he has time to devote to volunteering. He runs the coal business in town, but his neighbors pity him because his wife is unkind and the couple has no children. Mr. Summers arrives bearing a black box. He is followed by the postmaster, Mr. Graves, who caries a stool.
ellauri270.html on line 321: Because of the innocuous nature of Mr. Summers’ other community activities, the lottery is assumed to be something in a similar vein. He is a successful businessman, but pitied because he can have no children—clearly this is a very family-oriented society.
ellauri270.html on line 325: The details of the lottery’s proceedings seem mundane, but the crowd’s hesitation to get involved is a first hint that the lottery is not necessarily a positive experience for the villagers. It is also clear that the lottery is a tradition, and that the villagers believe very strongly in conforming to tradition—they are unwilling to change even something as small as the black box used in the proceedings.
ellauri270.html on line 327: Much of the original ritual of the lottery has been forgotten, and one change that was made was Mr. Summers’s choice to replace the original pieces of wood with slips of paper, which fit more easily in the black box now that the population of the village has grown to three hundred. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves always prepare the slips of paper, and then the box is kept overnight in the safe of the coal company. For the rest of the year, the box is stored in Mr. Graves’s barn, the post office, or the Martins’ grocery store.
ellauri270.html on line 329: Even though the villagers value tradition, many of the specific parts of their traditions have been lost with time. This suggests that the original purpose of the lottery has also been forgotten, and the lottery is now an empty ritual, one enacted simply because it always has been. When we later learn the significance of the slips of paper, it seems horribly arbitrary that they are simply made by a person the night before.
ellauri270.html on line 331: In preparation for the lottery, Mr. Summers creates lists of the heads of families, heads of households in each family, and members of each household in each family. Mr. Graves properly swears in Mr. Summers as the officiator of the lottery. Some villagers recall that there used to be a recital to accompany the swearing in, complete with a chant by the officiator. Others remembered that the officiator was required to stand in a certain way when he performed the chant, or that he was required to walk among the crowd. A ritual salute had also been used, but now Mr. Summers is only required to address each person as he comes forward to draw from the black box. Mr. Summers is dressed cleanly and seems proper and important as he chats with Mr. Graves and the Martins.
ellauri270.html on line 333: The lottery involves organizing the village by household, which reinforces the importance of family structures here. This structure relies heavily on gender roles for men and women, where men are the heads of households, and women are delegated to a secondary role and considered incapable of assuming responsibility or leadership roles. Horrible! Even though the setting of this story is a single town, it is generic enough that it might be almost anywhere. In doing this, Jackson essentially makes the story a fable—the ideas explored here are universal.
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 345: Mrs. Dunbar is the only woman to draw in the lottery, and the discussion of her role in the ritual proceedings emphasizes the theme of family structure and gender roles. Women are considered so inferior that even a teenaged son would replace a mother as the “head of household.” Wow this is going back to last century, or to Afghanistan! The formality surrounding these proceedings shows Mrs. Dunbar’s involvement to be an anomaly for the village.
ellauri270.html on line 349: Jack Watson’s role continues the examination of family structures and gender roles. Jack earns respect and identity as a man among the villagers by drawing in the lottery. He is referred to as a “good fellow” and “a man” who is looking after his “helpless” mother.
ellauri270.html on line 353: The description of the lottery’s formalities builds the reader’s anticipation, as the many seemingly mundane rituals all lead up to a mysterious, ominous outcome. The arc of the story depends on the question of just what will happen to the “winner” of the lottery.
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 363: In the crowd, Mr. Adams turns to Old Man Warner and says that apparently the north village is considering giving up the lottery. Old Man Warner snorts and dismisses this as foolish. He says that next the young folks will want everyone to live in caves or nobody to work. He references the old saying, “lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” He reminds Mr. Adams that there has always been a lottery, and that it’s bad enough to see Mr. Summers leading the proceedings while joking with everybody. Mrs. Adams intercedes with the information that some places have already stopped the lotteries. Old Man Warner feels there’s “nothing but trouble in that.”
ellauri270.html on line 365: The conversation between Mr. Adams and Old Man Warner establishes why the lottery is continued in this village, while it has been ended in others: the power of tradition. As the oldest man in the village, Old Man Warner links the lottery to traditional civilization, equating its removal to a breakdown of society and a return to a primitive state. For the villagers, the lottery demonstrates the organization and power of society—that is, a group of people submitting to shared rules in exchange for protection and support. But we see that the lottery also shows the arbitrariness and corruption of many of these social rules.
ellauri270.html on line 367: Mrs. Dunbar says to her oldest son that she wishes everyone would hurry up, and Horace replies that they’re almost through the list of names. Mrs. Dunbar instructs him to run and tell his father once they’re done. When Old Man Warner is called to select his slip of paper, he says that this is his seventy-seventh lottery. When Jack Watson steps forward, he receives several comments from the crowd reminding him to not be nervous and to take his time.
ellauri270.html on line 369: Mrs. Dunbar’s impatience, Old Man Warner’s pride, and Jack Watson’s coming-of-age moment show how integrated the lottery is into this society. No one questions the practice, and they all arrange their lives around it. Jackson shows how difficult it is to give up a tradition when everyone else conforms to it.
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 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 389: Even a dystopian society like this one doesn’t exclude other aspects of human nature like youth, popularity, friendship, and selfishness. Nancy’s behavior resembles that of many popular teen girls—again emphasizing the universal nature of Jackson’s story. We get the sense that Old Man Warner is perpetually displeased with any kind of change to tradition—even though the omniscient narrator tells us that the “tradition” Warner is used to is very different from the original lottery.
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 395: Mr. Summers tells the crowd, “let’s finish quickly.” The villagers have forgotten several aspects of the lottery’s original ritual, but they remember to use stones for performing the final act. There are stones in the boys’ piles and some others on the ground. Mrs. Delacroix selects a large stone she can barely lift. “Hurry up,” she says to Mrs. Dunbar beside her. Mrs. Dunbar gasps for breath and says that she can’t run. Go ahead, she urges, “I’ll catch up.”
ellauri270.html on line 397: Mrs. Dunbar already sent her son away, perhaps to spare him having to participate in murder this year, and now she herself seems to try and avoid taking part in the lottery as well. The line about the stones makes an important point—most of the external trappings of the lottery have been lost or forgotten, but the terrible act at its heart remains. There is no real religious or practical justification for the lottery anymore—it’s just a primitive murder for the sake of tradition. Now the situation would be quite different if this were a real case of adultery, about which there are clear instructions in the Old Testament!
ellauri270.html on line 399: The use of stones also connects the ritual to Biblical punishments of “stoning” people for various sins, which then brings up the idea of the lottery’s victim as a sacrifice. The idea behind most primitive human sacrifices was that something (or someone) must die in order for the crops to grow that year. This village has been established as a farming community, so it seems likely that this was the origin of the lottery. The horrifying part of the story is that the murderous tradition continues even in a seemingly modern, “normal” society. In actual fact, the point is to reduce the number of mouths to feed in times of shortage.
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.
ellauri270.html on line 417: The ritual of the lottery itself is organized around the family unit, as, in the first round, one member of a family selects a folded square of paper. The members of the family with the marked slip of paper must then each select another piece of paper to see the individual singled out within that family. This process reinforces the importance of the family structure within the town, and at the same time creates a….. read analysis of Family Structure and Gender Roles.
ellauri270.html on line 421: The villagers in the story perform the lottery every year primarily because they always have—it’s just the way things are done. The discussion of this traditional practice, and the suggestion in the story that other villages are breaking from it by disbanding the lottery, demonstrates the persuasive power of ritual and tradition for humans. The lottery, in itself, is clearly pointless: an individual is killed after being randomly selected. Even the original ritual has been… read analysis of The Power of Tradition.
xxx/ellauri312.html on line 1053: The German Los evolved in a similar way but already 1000 years ago it had shifted its focus toward the idea of lottery, gratuitous gratification without work or effort. And with the rise of regular debtor´s prisons the main meaning Erlösung has today: bail.
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