By Reagan Englesby
It is June 27th and all is perfectly idyllic in the village of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Yet, as this famous short story’s narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems in this quiet community. Many people have already heard of this story’s horrific conclusion, in which all the villagers, from the smallest child to the oldest man, stone a local woman, Tessie Hutchinson, presumably to death. Yet what makes this story so incredibly impactful for both casual readers and literary critics alike is the seeming randomness of its violent conclusion. The reasoning behind this barbaric act of violence is that it was poor Tessie’s luck to pull the slip of paper with the condemning black mark out of the village’s ceremonial black box. The story’s build, beginning with a description that epitomizes a stereotypically-peaceful village scene and continuing with only a vague, eerie sense of unease until the final scene where the horrific prize of the lottery’s chance winner is finally revealed, makes for an almost-instinctual emotional impact. However, the powerful impact of this story’s conclusion breaks down when the random and brutal chance of the lottery becomes unclear.
The lottery, seemingly an annual village tradition is a random selection process that determines which person from the village is selected for stoning. First, each of the heads of the families in the village chose a slip to represent their family, then each member of the family with the marked paper must select their own slip of paper. The family member that ultimately selects the paper with the black mark is the winner, as Tessie did. This selecting process seems to be entirely based on chance. In fact, Shield points out that the very title of Jackson’s short story highlights this randomness (413). Jackson makes a point of describing the nonchalance with which the village leaders, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, store the black box containing the slips of paper during the rest of the year. The story describes that the box was “put away” each year “sometimes in one place, sometimes another” (Jackson). This indifference seems to only escalate the awful randomness of the whole lottery. As Shields describes, it is “the arbitrary nature of the selection process” that above all “appears to shock” readers (412).
However, upon closer examination, the story’s impact begins to break down. Not only is the structure of the story self-defeating, but the very randomness of the story is ineffectual. To Church, the seeming chance of the lottery must not be real, a supposition which he bases on Jackson’s verb choice: the villagers “take” their paper slips, while the authorities in the village “select” their slips (qtd. in Bailey, 39). To Williams, the “mathematical fairness” of the lottery is dubious (qtd. in Gibson, 193). Many feminist and Marxist critics will argue that the lottery simply must “somehow” not be fair because the selection of the defiant, questioning, female Tessie as winner seems too convenient (Bailey, 38). If the lottery is not really fair, or if the very structure of the story hints that the winner is not, in fact, randomly selected, the impact of the shocking ending is reduced – or, at the very least, redirected.
As a literary device, sacrifice is usually a noble thing when done willingly and a ritualistic thing when done against the sacrifice’s will. Yet, the violent tradition of the lottery is weak and confused in the village where Tessie is stoned. The lottery is treated almost arbitrarily by the authorities most likely to safeguard it. As mentioned above, the black box of the lottery is treated with a surprising carelessness when not being directly used in the lottery ritual. Even the villagers are confused about the meaning and purpose of the lottery, some suggesting that the lottery should be done away with and others suggesting that the lottery is connected to the successful growth of their village crops. The authority figures of the story, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, seem to lack a gravitas that is usually associated with such rituals. The whole village seems to treat the tradition rather lightly as something that must be got “over with” before the villagers can get back to their humdrum lives, considering that it is a lottery of life and death (Jackson). The Lottery is mentioned along with ordinary traditions such as Halloween programs and square dances and everyone in the village seems to have forgotten or even consciously changed aspects of the tradition over the years, such as the ritual chant that had been “allowed to lapse” or the replacement of the traditional wood chips that had been replaced by paper slips as the village grew (Jackson).
It seems that the very tradition of the lottery, far from growing stronger and more prevalent an issue, is dying out. The village of the story does not seem to be completely backwards-thinking. Younger men are in charge of the village, while the elderly advocate of the ritual is described as “petulant,” evidencing the introduction of new blood and the possibility of the introduction of new traditions. The only villager really attached to the practice is the person whose elderliness is such an overwhelmingly-defining aspect of his character that it is a part of his name. Old Man Warner is a stickler for the lottery, but even he is not vouching for the preservation of any ritualistic part of the lottery but the preservation of the ritual itself, as other nearby villages have completely done away with the practice (Jackson). It may be safe to assume that it is only a matter of time until the whole tradition of the lottery is “allowed to lapse” to make things easier for the village, as the other aspects of the ritual were dropped, cheapening the horror of the lottery from its status as a sacred ritual to a dying tradition.
The story’s impact is further lessened when its use of sacrifice as a troupe is examined. As Gibson, Shields, and Bailey all point out, “The Lottery” seems to draw inspiration from many ritual sacrifice forms. As Gibson observes, the story even mirrors the structure of a Biblical story which includes a lottery-esque ritual and ends in a stoning (Gibson, 194). Because the story shares many similarities with real historical and religious sacrifice rituals, the meaning and purpose of the violence in the story is muddled. Readers are left wondering what the point of Jackson’s story really is. The interpretations of the violence in this short story seem endless, leaving confusion, not commentary. Is all religious ritual sacrifice to be condemned? Are beliefs that include traditions of ritual scapegoating barbaric? Is “The Lottery” a warning against the sheep-like acceptance of capital punishment by United States citizens, as argued by Shields, or is it a commentary on gender and class discrimination, as Bailey hints? Even if it is admitted that Jackson’s story does not propose to address any larger societal issue but is “just a story,” there is still the shock of violence to be dealt with (Jackson qtd. in Gibson).
“The Lottery” is impactful only in so far as there is significance behind the violence of the ending. If the story simply describes the awfulness of random, brutal violence, without any hints of a deeper meaning, the story itself becomes arbitrary. In a paradoxical twist, the reader is left to wonder whether it is simply chance that a random story about nothing at all has gained so much notoriety. The gap in meaning between the violence and its supposed random nature only breaks down further, lessening the short story’s impact and weakening its significance. Perhaps, with time, “The Lottery” will fade out of existence, like the lottery itself is destined to do.
Baily, Ted. "Sacred Violence in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery." British and American Studies, Vol 20 (2014): 37-42.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” The New Yorker, 1948, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery
Shields, Patrick J. “Arbitrary Condemnation and Sanctioned Violence in Shirley Jackson’s ‘the Lottery.’” Contemporary Justice Review, vol. 7, no. 4, Dec. 2004, pp. 411–419. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/1028258042000305884.