Setting

“In a warm day in late June (the 27th, to

be exact), villagers gather in the square”
Note: Jackson didn’t specify the exact
place which the event took place, some
critics of the story claim that it was in
England but some claim it was in United
States because the only clue given by
Jackson is that it is in a small village which
is merely composed of 300 people.
 Exposition

“The morning of June 27th was

clear and sunny, with the fresh
warmth of a full summer day; the
flowers were blossoming profusely
and the grass was richly green.
 Rising
Action
“All ready?” he called. “Now
I’ll read the names-heads of
families first-and the men come
up and take a paper out of the
box. Keep the paper folded in
your hand without looking at it
until everyone has had a turn.
Everything clear?
 Climax
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and
forced the slip of the paper out of her hand.
It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr.
Summers had made the night before the
heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill
Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir
in the crowd.
 Falling
Although the Action
villagers had forgotten the
ritual and lost the original black box, they
still remembered to use stones. The pile of
stones the boys had made earlier was
ready; there were stones on the ground
with the blowing scraps of paper that had
come out of the box. Delacroix selected a
stone so large she had to pick it up with
both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar.
 Resolution

“It isn’t fair. It isn’t right,” Mrs.

Hutchinson screamed, and they
were upon her.
 CONFLICT

MAN VS. SOCIETY

• ADAMS FAMILY
• ALLEN FAMILY
• ANDERSON
• BENTHAM
• CLARK
• DELACROIX
• DUNBAR
• GRAVES
• HARBURT
• HUTCHINSON
• MARTIN
• OVERDYKE
• PERCY
• SUMMERS
• WARNER
• WATSON
• ZANINI
 The Mr. Graves helps Mr. Summers
postmaster. prepare for the lottery and assists
during the ritual.
thepapers him
 Point of View
It is Third Person Objective.
This is Objective because the narrator
remain outside the character’s mind, they only
present dialogues and recounting events. Thus,
they allow readers to interpret the actions as well
as the dialogues of the characters without
interference.
The narrator is not part of the story that’s
why its third person
 Themes

• Violence
• Tradition
• Cruelty of Human Nature
 Summary
On a late summer morning, the villagers of a
small town gather to conduct their annual lottery.
There is an air of festivity among them, especially
the children. Only a few in the crowd reveal slight
hints of tension or unease.
The lottery has a long history in this and
surrounding towns. The people who run it—in this
town, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves—work hard to
preserve the rituals that have been passed down
from year to year. Changes have crept in, and some
old-timers such as Old Man Warner regret what they
perceive as a loss of a heritage that has preserved
the happiness and prosperity of the town over time.
 Summary
All the villagers finally arrive, Tessie
Hutchinson being one of the last. Mr. Summers
conducts the preliminaries, ensuring that each
family is represented and that those who are
absent have someone on hand to draw for them.
Finally the lottery begins: Heads of families step
forward and draw small paper slips from the black
box that Mr. Summers keeps for the occasion. As
this goes on, townspeople engage in small talk,
and the air of festivity gives way to a pervasive
aura of nervousness.
 Summary
When all the slips are drawn, Bill Hutchinson
discovers that he has picked the one marked with a
black spot. Immediately Tessie begins complaining that
the drawing was not conducted properly. Others
encourage her to be a good sport, however, and her
protests fall on deaf ears. She and the other members of
her immediate family now come forward and draw slips,
as various townspeople whisper apprehensively. Tessie
draws the slip with the black spot. Mr. Summers
commands, “Let’s finish quickly.”
The townspeople now move off to a cleared spot
outside the town, Tessie in the center of the group. A
desperate woman now, Tessie entreats the crowd to go
through the ritual again, doing things fairly. Ignoring her
protests, the men, women, and children of the town
begin stoning her.
 Character
Dynamic: Static: in their atttitude
Tessie Hutchinson in on the Lottery
her view of the Lottery.
 Motivation

“Lottery in June,
corn be
heavy soon.”
 Other Elements Present in The Story
Foreshadowing: hint provocatively at what is
to come
At the end of "The Lottery," the reader
discovers with horror what is about to happen,
but the story ends with the casting of the first
stones. Jackson prefers to leave the gruesome
details to the reader's imagination.
Conflict
The conflict occurs when Tessie starts
complaining that his husband wasn’t given
ample time to pick.
 Similar Practice with the story
• In ancient Athens, Greece, Athenians
believed that human sacrifice
promised fertile crops.
• Each year in ancient Athens, as one
story goes, during the annual
festival called Thargelia, citizens
would stone to death a man and a
woman selected for this purpose.
Death was thought to bring
prosperity to the community
• A similar ritual
sacrifice occurs
with Tessie
Hutchinson.
• This explains
the village
member's
remark,
“Lottery in
June, corn be
heavy soon.”
Probing deeper in the story....
 Male vs. Female
• Early in the story, the boys make a great
pile of stones in one corner of the square,
while the girls stand aside talking amongst
themselves, looking over their shoulders
at the boys.
• When Tessie draws the paper with the black
mark on it, Tessie does not show it to the
crowd; instead her husband Bill forces it from
her hand and holds it up.
 Symbolism on Names
• Tessie Hutchinson: Most likely an allusion to
Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643), American religious
enthusiast who founded the Puritan colony of Rhode
Island. She had new theological views which opposed
her to other ministers. After a local trial banished her
she was tried before the Boston Church and formally
excommunicated. Anne and fifteen of her children
were subsequently murdered by the Indians in 1643.
• The parallelism between her story and Tessie's is
clear: TO HER, EXCOMMUNICATION MEANT
SPIRITUAL DEATH just as TO TESSIE BEING
CAST OUT FROM THE GROUP = DEATH.
 Symbolism on Names
• Delacroix (“of-the-Cross”)
> vulgarized to Della-croy (no longer
truly of the cross)
> Some critics suggest that Mrs.
Delacroix represents the duality of
human nature: she is pleasant and
friendly on the outside, but underneath
she possesses a degree of savagery.
 Symbolism on Names
• Graves : the obvious grave = place of
entombment/death
• Mr. Graves quietly assists Mr. Summers, with
“Graves” hinting at a dark undertone.
• Grave = serious; hints that the lottery may not
be a
frivolous contest (“Mr. Graves said gravely”)
• Critics have said that Jackson creates balance
by juxtaposing Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves
to share in the responsibilities of the ritual:
Life brings death, and death recycles life.
 Symbolism on Names

• Adams : reference to the first man, the

first sinner
• While he seems to be one of the few who
questions the lottery when he mentions that
another village is thinking about giving up
the ritual, he stands at the front of the
crowd when the stoning of Tessie begins.
Like the biblical Adam, Adams goes along
with the sin; he follows others in their evil.
 Symbolism on Names

• Old Man Warner: Resistant to change

and representing the old social order, he
warns about how important the event is to
the survival of the village.
• Old man Warner is 77 years old the
number 7 has many connotations, but one
common connotation is that 7 is lucky …he
has been lucky to avoid the lottery so
many times.
 Symbolism on Names

• Dunbar: breaking this name down into its 2

syllables, one can come up with:
• 1. dun – to treat cruelly; or a dull, brownish
gray color
• 2. bar - Something that impedes or prevents
action or progress; relatively long, straight,
rigid piece of solid material used as a barrier,
support, or fastener; A standard, expectation,
or degree of requirement;
 Shirley Jackson’s Response
• Generally, she refused to explain the meaning of
the story.
• She did once tell a journalist: “I suppose I
hoped, by setting a particularly brutal rite in the
present and in my own village, to shock the
readers with a graphic demonstration of the
pointless violence and general inhumanity of
their own lives [but] I gather that in some cases
the mind just rebels. The number of people
who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix
washer at the end would amaze you.”
 Quote from the story
“although the villagers forgotten
the ritual and the original black
box, they still remembered to use
the stones”
Thank You 