ZhenXiang Yuan

English Composition 2
Dr. Jackson
7/13/2023

Literary Analysis of “The Lottery”

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is based on a non-participant point of view over

a small village. It is written for the experience of the lottery. The story begins with the

author describing the different villagers gathering for the lottery starting with the children

and progressing to the adults. Then Mr. Summers, who is the conductor of the event,

comes around with a black box and explains the rules of the lottery. After that, the head

of each family comes up to draw a piece of paper, and the winner is then revealed by a

black dot in the middle of their paper. The story ends with the winner of the lottery:

Tessie Hutchinson getting sacrificed by stoning for better harvests. The story “The

Lottery” by Shirley Jackson shows the idea that relentlessly following traditions could

lead to inhumane results.

The story shows that not all traditions are good, and some could lead to the

unnecessary death of many. Throughout most of the story the author paints the lottery as

many people would perceive it today from the drawing of the paper, and the general tone

throughout most of the story. However, the lottery in the story is different, instead of

winning a large sum of money, the winner will instead meet their end by stoning. In the

story Shirley Jackson wrote “Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy

soon’” (Jackson). In this quote it directly relates the lottery to the heavy harvest of corn.
A heavy harvest is important to the people since many in the town are farmers who make

their living off the farms, so this will entice them to continue this tradition. Although the

actual plausibility of the lottery was never verified, they still decided to continue the

tradition in fear of losing out on the harvests. This tradition of the lottery also shows the

gruesome effect of it. The winner is then killed for a theoretical reason that was never

proven, and no one in the village thought of any wrong-doing. Despite other villages

already abandoning the tradition, and the old man calling those who abandoned the

tradition “foolish.” Not even the family of the person who is being sacrificed look down

on it: “Nancy and Bill, Jr., opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed,

turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.”

(Jackson).. In the quote they were laughing and were happy that they weren’t the one, but

they never had a single regard for who it might be. It is such a natural occurrence that

even the closest to the person being sacrificed don’t seem to understand how barbaric this

is. This story highlights the importance of reexamining the validity of old traditions in

order to determine whether we should continue it or not.

 Work Cited
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” The Lottery and Other Stories, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005.