The Lottery
Shirley Jackson
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Table of Contents
Plot Overview
Character List
Quotations
Study Questions
Foreshadowing
Themes & Symbols
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The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, is about a small town in the summer. It starts
out sounding happy and bright, with kids playing in the dirt and adults gossiping.
There is a black box in the middle of the town. Eventually, the lottery starts and
everyone gets quieter, although still seemingly calm. One by one, the man of each
family starts drawing pieces of paper from black box to find the ‘winner’ of the
lottery. Next, one man gets a black dot on his paper, he knowing that one member
of his family will be the ‘winner’. Then, each member of the ‘winning’ family
chooses a piece of paper, making the man’s wife ‘win’ to be the sacrifice for others
in her town.
Mr. Summers is the man that helps the people get the papers. He is in
charge of all of the activities in the town. Mr. Hutchinson is the man of the family,
so he gets his family’s paper. His family later on gets the black dot. When the
family members get their own ‘chance’ to ‘win’, Tessie Hutchinson is the ‘winner’.
Tessie is mad that she won and she doesn’t think that its fair. The lottery has been
done for a long time, since before Old Man Warner was born. The old man thinks it
would be crazy to stop the lottery. The man that writes up the papers to be drawn
is Mr. Graves. Mr. Graves digs the graves for the future winner.
“You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It
wasn’t fair!” Tessie says this to Mr. Summers after she found out that her
family wins the lottery. This shows how badly she doesn’t want to win.
“There’s Don and Eva, make them take their chance!” says Mrs. Hutchinson. This
shows that she is selfish and thinks her life is worth living, even if it means her
own kids will die.
‘Nancy and Bill, Jr., opened theirs at the same time , both beamed and laughed,
turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their
heads.’ This shows that they are selfish and that they don’t value each other,
only themselves.
•
Why is it that the people think it is so crazy that other town stopped the lottery?
The people are following the crowd by not stopping the lottery. If the people were
asked to really think about if sacrificing a town member, maybe even a family
member, they would probably realize that hurting people is not worth it for their
crops.
• Why is it that the people seem so calm even though the know someone is going
to die?
The people seem okay with this because they figure that there chance of dying is so
low and even so it would be for a good cause, so why not enjoy the time while you
have it?
•
•
•
One action of foreshadowing is in the beginning when the children were gathering
stones. At the time it seemed like they were gathering stones to play a game, but
they were really gathering stones for the winner of the lottery.
Another act of foreshadowing is when Tessie Hutchinson arrive late to the lottery.
Tessie seems like she is going against something. She also was saying it wasn’t fair
when her family got the dot. This is foreshadowing that she will be the winner of
the lottery and she will be going against it, even though at the time, we didn’t
know it.
Lastly, foreshadowing is shown by the adults. The adults speak about their farms,
rain, and tractors. This is showing that they are worried about their farms and it is
foreshadowing that their worries will take over lives.
Symbols
• The black box symbolizes darkness and scariness. The fact that the box has been
around for so long that shows the horrible tradition. The box is splintery which
could symbolize pain and ancient hardship. Even the image of the box may
symbolize the chance of death for the people of the town
Themes
• ‘Following the crowd can have disastrous consequences’.
This means that sometimes people do things and they don’t realize what they’re
doing, but they are doing it because everyone else is.
• ‘ The wickedness of the common man or woman on the street can be just as
shocking and horrifying as the heinous crime of a serial killer or a sadistic head of
state’.
This means that sometimes people may seem innocent, but they can end up doing
things that are no better, maybe even worse than that of a serial killer.
Feinbueg, Johnathan. "Wordle." Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds. Web. 28 Jan. 2010.
<http://www.wordle.net/>.
"The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - from the Short Story Library at American Literature."
Short Stories & Classic Literature from around the World. Web. 28 Jan. 2010.
<http://www.americanliterature.com/Jackson/ss/TheLottery.html>.