The Lottery – Shirley Jackson

When you hear the word “lottery” you think about luck and riches, you don't
usually associate it with words such as “ritual” “sacrifice” and “death,” right? Sadly, this
short story “The Lottery” is not so lucky after all. How ironic.

Although the short story’s genre is horror fiction, you won’t actually realize the
terrifying content until you get to the end, as it starts in a summer setting where flowers
are blossoming, children experiencing liberty after being done with school; gathering
around the square. This makes it seem like it’s a light story with happy endings.
Unfortunately, it’s just misleading you from finding the truth within the text. Men began
to gather shortly after the children. Soon enough the men are followed by their wives.
“They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their
husbands.”This reveals how people hide their disgusting behavior by being nice at first,
greeting their neighbors and immediately gossiping about them as soon as they turn their
backs, and I’m aware that we still carry this with us. After all this, Mr. Summers, the
lottery host, arrives at the square with a black wooden box. They lost the old
paraphernalia they used for the lottery before and the black box they have now “had been
put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born.” As said in
the story, Old Man Warner states that it’s his seventy-seventh year in the lottery, and the
black box is older than him. This proves how old this tradition is, how long they have
been doing it. Before the drawing of slips start, Mr. Summers asked, “Watson boy
drawing this year?” Watson emerged from the crowd and nervously blinked his eyes and
ducked his head as several people said things such as “glad to see your mother’s got a
man to do it.” As I read this again, it occurred to me, why would someone drawing for
the lottery get nervous? Well, in the end I realized the reason why; it’s because whoever
picks the one of a kind lottery ticket, gets stoned to death. As the lottery starts and names
get called, Mr. Adams and Old Man Warner talk about how the north village talks about
giving up the lottery, Old Man Warner disagrees with this, clearly showing that he wants
nothing to change about their said tradition. It’s also stated in the story that Mr. Summers
have talked about changing the old black box, but nothing still changed. It’s sad how all
he wants to change is the black box and not the disgusting tradition itself. After everyone
drawing the slips, it is shown that Mr. Bill Hutchinson drew the unlucky slip, putting one
of his family members to risk. His wife Mrs. Hutchinson, states that it’s unfair, how Mr.
Summers did not give him time to pick the paper he wanted. This was the time where I
realized that this story is unusual. If my husband were to pick the “winning” lottery
paper, I would be delighted. Their household then drew again to pick the annual sacrifice.
In the end, Mrs. Hutchinson was revealed to be the unlucky one and the villagers then
stoned her to death.
 This short story shows the gruesome characteristics and behavior of human beings
while being ever-so-subtle about it, masking how hideous people are. It highlights how
people will do things as long as it will benefit them, regardless if it’s unfair and wrong.
Without this annual lottery and sacrifice, it is believed that there wouldn’t be a crop for
them to eat. Some parts also show how hypocritical and two-faced people are and even
though the story is not so scary for horror fiction, their characteristics and behavior are
disgusting and cruel enough for this story to send a horrid message.