SUBJECT CODE: DT1223
20 Lorong 1/137C, Batu 5,
Jalan Klang Lama, 58000
Kuala Lumpur
Mission
We inspire to transform
communities by providing
affordable education for every
eligible individual whereby we
encourage students to relate
academic knowledge in
meaningful and thoughtprovoking- ways with real
business environment to guide
them from classroom to
boardroom.
Vision
To be a top-notch Higher
Education Institution via
creating excellent
teaching-learning platforms to
promote Holistic Education.
SUBJECT NAME: INTRODUCTION TO
ENGLISH LITERATURE
WEEK: 14
TOPIC: 7
PREPARED BY:
Mr. KHAIRUL
20 Lorong 1/137C, Batu 5,
Jalan Klang Lama, 58000
Kuala Lumpur
Mission
We inspire to transform
communities by providing
affordable education for every
eligible individual whereby we
encourage students to relate
academic knowledge in
meaningful and thoughtprovoking- ways with real
business environment to guide
them from classroom to
boardroom.
Vision
To be a top-notch Higher
Education Institution via
creating excellent
teaching-learning platforms to
promote Holistic Education.
Introduction to English Literature (DT1223)
Week 14
By Mr. Khairul
By the end of this unit, students should be able to:
1.
demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of literary texts through the
analysis of key literary elements, including plot, characterization, theme,
symbolism, and narrative structure, enabling them to critically evaluate
and interpret various works of literature.
Short Story: The Lottery
Author: Shirley Jackson
Year published: 1948
 ‘The Lottery’ is the best-known story of the American writer Shirley
Jackson.
 Published in the New Yorker in 1948
 The story is about a village where an annual lottery is drawn.
However, the fate of the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip is only
revealed at the end of the story in a dark twist.
 ‘The Lottery’ is the best-known story of the American writer Shirley Jackson.
 Published in the New Yorker in 1948.
 The story is about a village where an annual lottery is drawn. However, the fate of
the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip is only revealed at the end of the story in a
dark twist.
 ‘The Lottery’ forces us to address some unpleasant aspects of human nature, such
as people’s obedience to authority and tradition and their willingness to carry out
evil acts in the name of superstition.
1.
Tradition is the illusion of permanence.
History is full of people and whole cultures performing seemingly irrational rituals
simply because ‘they’ve always done so’ for as long as they can remember. Old Man
Warner embodies this blind adherence to tradition in Jackson’s story. People persist in
the lottery in the name of ‘tradition’ and in the superstitious belief that the annual
sacrifice has a beneficial effect on crops.
However, Shirley Jackson introduces a complication into the story in this regard. Towards
the end of the narrative, as the villagers are picking up stones ready to carry out the
stoning of Tessie Hutchinson, the narrator reveals that they ‘had forgotten the ritual’.
They don’t know what they have to do other than kill the chosen person who has drawn
the slip with the black mark on it.
2.
Morality is subjective against tradition
 ‘The Lottery’ raises some difficult moral problems. If we finish reading Jackson’s story
and conclude that the stoning of one villager is mere superstitious tradition and has no
bearing on the outcome of that year’s crops, it is easy to dismiss the practice as
pointless as well as barbaric.
 But what if the villagers are right and the stoning does have some kind of positive
effect on the corn? What if some god, whether the Christian God or some other, is
listening and does observe, and accept, their offering of a human sacrifice?
 Then we have a moral choice. Is it ever acceptable to be directly responsible for one
person’s death if it saves the lives of three hundred? If the crops failed, it would mean a
difficult winter for the village, and potentially many of them would die.
2.
Morality is subjective against tradition
 In this respect, we might compare Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ with the later thought
experiment known as the trolley problem.
 In most versions of this moral problem, a train is on course to kill five people, but the
bystander has the power to switch the train onto a different line where it will kill just
one person.
 Would you pull the switch? After all, in doing so, you would have directly saved five
people from certain death. But you would also have directly killed someone.
3.
The nature of ‘evil’.
 This moral question leads us to another difficult question. Are the villagers evil for
doing what they do to Tessie Hutchinson? Or are they good people who do something
unspeakable but are convinced they are doing the right thing? And which is worse?
Steven Weinberg famously observed that without religion the world would be full of
good people doing things and evil people doing evil things, but for good people to do
evil things,‘that takes religion’.
 We don’t need to accept this quotation wholesale to see its applicability to Jackson’s
story. (Indeed, we cannot even be sure that the villagers are acting out of a ‘religious’
belief per se: the actual ritual, aside from the stoning, has long been forgotten, and the
tradition appears to have been emptied of any deeper meaning it ever had.) But the
core message is the same: the villagers are ordinary working people who have simply
been convinced that the lottery is normal because it’s always been part of village life.
1.
Summer
 Summer is the setting for the story, the events of which take place on the morning of 27 June
one year, between ten o’clock in the morning and midday. But this summer setting is also
laden with symbolism, because of the significance of crops in the story, and the link which
the villagers perceive between their village lottery and the success (or failure) of their
harvest that year.
 In this connection, it is obviously significant that the man who conducts the lottery is named
Mr Summers. It is as if this ‘jovial’ childless man is the embodiment or personification of the
summer itself and the ritual the villagers observe to try to make the summer a favourable
one for their crops.
2.
The Black Box
 The old black box, which the villagers use every year to draw the name of the unlucky
‘winner’ of the lottery, is also rich in symbolism. Black is the colour of death, of course, and
the sombre colour of the box emphasises the seriousness with which the villagers approach
their annual ritual, as well as emphasising the grisly fate of the unlucky ‘winner’ of the lottery
at the end of the story. (Jackson complicates this symbolism, though, by telling us that the socalled ‘black box’ was not entirely black, since it was so faded and stained.)
 But the black box has symbolism for the characters in the story, too. It symbolises the long-
standing tradition of the lottery, which has been running for many years; this is why the
villagers are reluctant to discard it, despite its shabby appearance. Indeed, there is a story
that the present box had been constructed from earlier boxes, providing a link between the
present lottery and all the lotteries conducted in previous years.
 The black box is also a symbolic link with the origins of the village itself: it is rumoured that
the first box (from which this one descends) was created by the founders of the village, long
ago.
 The Lottery’ is set on 27 June, and was published in the 26 June issue of the New Yorker in
1948.
 ‘The Lottery’ is often analysed as a story about mob mentality and blind tradition, where
people perform seemingly irrational rituals simply because ‘they’ve always done so’ for
as long as they can remember.
 Old Man Warner, the old man of the village, quotes an old saying, ‘Lottery in June, corn
be heavy soon’, indicating that the annual lottery is thought to bring about favourable
crops and a good harvest.
 We may scoff at the Carthaginians sacrificing their children to the gods or the Aztecs
doing similar, but Jackson’s point is that every age and every culture has its own illogical
and even harmful traditions, which are obeyed in the name of ‘tradition’ and in the
superstitious belief that they have a beneficial effect.
 To give up the lottery would, in the words of Old Man Warner, be the behaviour of ‘crazy
fools’, because he is convinced that the lottery is not only beneficial but essential to the
success of the village’s crops.
 People will die if the lottery is not drawn, because the crops will fail and people will
starve as a result. It’s much better to people like Old Man Warner that one person be
chosen at random (so the process is ‘fair’) and sacrificed for the collective health of the
community.
 There are obviously many parallels with other stories here, as well as various ethical
thought experiments in moral philosophy. The trolley problem is one.
 what makes the lottery in Jackson’s story even more problematic is that there is no
evidence that the stoning of one villager does affects the performance of the village
crops.
 Such magical thinking obviously belongs to religious superstition and a belief in an
intervening God who demands a sacrifice in recognition of his greatness before he will
allow the crops to flourish and people to thrive.
 In time, participation in the lottery became not optional but compulsory. The extremes
between nice prizes and nasty surprises, as it were, became more pronounced: at one
end, a lucky winner might be promoted to a high office in Babylon, while at the other
end, they might be killed.
Summarise the analysis of “The lottery” in 200 words.
Reflection Time
Can you explain why certain
short stories get popular and
read by many people than
other short stories?
“He who asks a question is a
foo for five minutes, he who
doesn’t ask a question
remains a fool forever.” –
Chinese Proverb.
Thank you for participating
in this class.
See you again soon!!!