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Sihyun Kim
Dr. John Silva
English 102.0841
14 May 2006
The Full Scope of the Human Psyche
The residents of a certain undisclosed town in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and the
nameless narrator found in O. Henry’s “A Municipal Report” are portrayed with completely
different attributes by their respective creators. While Jackson introduces her readers to an
“everyday” crowd of neighborly villagers in their preparation for a lottery, O. Henry presents his
audience to a man who appears to be emotionally detached from society. Nevertheless, the
outward appearances of the characters in these two texts utterly misrepresent who they truly are:
the seemingly innocuous lottery in Jackson’s short story is in reality a gruesome gathering for the
town’s annual stoning whereas O. Henry’s narrator is not as aloof as he portrays himself to be.
Although such extreme contrasts between appearance and reality are understandably confusing
— multiple readings of the texts are required for the readers to fully appreciate what is going on
in the stories — they ultimately help accentuate the crucial theme of good and evil that is
prevalent in both “The Lottery” and “A Municipal Report.”
In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson wastes no time in helping her readers adjust
themselves to the unfamiliar world that she has created. Indeed, one of the very first things
Jackson does in her narration is to provide her readers with a very detailed depiction of the
interactions amongst the town’s children: “[t]he children assembled first, of course. School was
recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended
to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play . . .” (351). By
utilizing the familiar imagery of juvenile mischief during the carefree days of summer vacation
in her introduction of the story, Jackson is able to simulate a world that is brimming with
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familiarity. Of course, it is not just amongst the children that the readers can observe the sense of
the “everyday”: [t]he men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting
and rain, tractors and taxes . . . The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came
shortly after their men folk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went
to join their husbands . . .” (352). In one way or another, these scenes of men and women
mingling in idle conversations should strike a chord to anyone who has ever been in a friendly
conversation with a fellow neighbor. The imagery, perhaps, is mundane — if not downright dull
and unremarkable — in its avoidance of anything distinct, but, in the end, it allows Jackson to
create this charmingly universal world in which the readers can comfortably accustom
themselves.
In sharp contrast to the everyday inhabitants of the nameless town in “The Lottery,” the
narrator of O. Henry’s “A Municipal Report” is portrayed as an antisocial individual who is
seemingly quite detached from the world. This emotional aloofness that the narrator embraces
cannot be better illustrated than through his opening remarks at the beginning of the story: “I
stepped off the train at 8 P.M.” (56). Given that the short story is ultimately about the death of
Major Caswell, an abusive husband who takes from his wife, Azalea Adair, every cent that she
earns, it seems highly inappropriate for the narrator to adopt such a matter-of-fact tone in his
descriptions of the events that led to the incident. Nevertheless, the narrator’s nonchalance
continuously emerges throughout the story in various ways: “It is built on undulating grounds;
and the streets are light by electricity at a cost of $32,470 per annum” (57). As if he is daring his
audience to reprimand him for his impertinence, the narrator occasionally breaks his story in
order to discuss such irrelevant facts about Nashville. In short, the fact that the narrator appears
to be just as concerned about Azalea’s sufferings as he is with Nashville’s “extensive trade in
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stoves and hollow wares” seems to suggest that he simply does not wish to exhibit even the
basics of human compassion (63).
In reality, however, the outward appearances of the characters found in both “The
Lottery” and “A Municipal Report” are complete distortions of their true nature. A much closer
reading of “The Lottery,” for example, reveals that the men and women of the village are
anything but “neighborly.” When Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson, one of the town’s female residents,
comes late to the assembly, she is, as expected, warmly greeted by one of her friends who are
already at the square:
. . . Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater
thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean
forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and
they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out back stacking wood,”
Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked out the window and the kids were
gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running.” She
dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time, though.
They’re still talking away up there.” (353-354)
The relationship between Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Delacroix appears to be genuinely
affectionate and there is, for the time being, no reason to suspect anything insidious between
these two women. Once again, the readers are lured by this deceptively idyllic portrayal of
contemporary life in a remote village somewhere in America, and, hence, cannot sense the
impending danger. As it turns out, the real purpose of the lottery is to randomly choose a
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sacrificial victim for the town’s annual stoning. In such a horrifically illogical world, one would
think that the basics of human compassion — love and loyalty — would at least remain constant.
Unfortunately, this is not the case: “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the
original black box, they still remembered to use stones . . . Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so
large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. ‘Come on,’ she said.
‘Hurry up’” (359). Upon the discovery that Mrs. Hutchinson has been designated to be sacrificed,
Mrs. Delacroix, the woman who is supposedly a “friend” of Mrs. Hutchinson, not only picks up
the largest rock she can find on the square, but also urges fellow villagers to quickly carry on
with the sadistic ritual. This sense of betrayal is so shocking and unexpected that it should linger
on even after the readers have long finished the story. After all, can it not be argued that the
readers themselves have been betrayed by the author? After lulling them into this comfortingly
“everyday” group of people, Jackson has suddenly abandoned her readers to ponder by
themselves how even the gentlest of all people can be capable of such evil.
In similar — but less gruesome — fashion, the narrator in “A Municipal Report” is not as
emotionally detached from his own story as he initially appears. In fact, the narrator is altogether
a willing participant in the events that lead up to the death of Major Caswell. For instance, when
the narrator first meets Uncle Caesar, the man who eventually kills Major Caswell in order to
protect Azalea Adair, he begins to list several important details about the former slave: “He wore
the most remarkable coat that I ever had seen or expect to see . . . [A]ll its buttons were gone
save one . . . The lone button was the size of a half-dollar, made of yellow horn and sewed on
with coarse twine” (60). For a man who projects himself as a mere observer of the story, the
narrator ironically takes the time to provide meticulously detailed information that will prove to
be vital in the conclusion. Nevertheless, the narrator stubbornly continues to maintain his
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nonchalance even as he acts as an accomplice to the murder: “While I stood there the fingers of
the right hand of [Major Caswell] . . . relaxed, and dropped something at my feet. I covered it
with one foot quietly, and a little later on I picked it up and pocketed it. I reasoned that in his last
struggle his hand must have seized that object unwittingly and held it in a death grip” (67).
Although the narrator makes a huge effort in his narration to maintain his tone of objectivity, the
inescapable truth is that the narrator is consciously protecting Uncle Caesar from exposure. By
this ulterior motive, the narrator inadvertently betrays his demeanor of emotional indifference.
Whether the narrator hereafter expects his readers to accept his decision to condone murder is
unclear, but one thing though is certain: the narrator is not immune to fine judgment and mercy.
To a certain extent, the narrator unwittingly demonstrates that even in a mind that is as
emotionally apathetic as his own, good will and compassion can ultimately prevail.
Hence, if the sharp contrast between reality and the narrator’s projected self in “A
Municipal Report” can serve as a symbolic representation of the power of good, why cannot
“The Lottery”’s appalling ending do the same for the other extreme — evil? In other words, one
should have the open mind to view Jackson’s abrupt departure from the “everyday” not as a
breach in the trust between the author and her readers, but rather as an allegory that elucidates
the full extent in which evil prevails at all levels of humanity. Take Tessie Hutchinson as an
example: when she realizes that each member of her family must draw again in order to narrow
down the selection, she yells out: “There’s Don and Eva . . . Make them take their chance!” (357).
In a last-ditch effort to increase her chances of survival, Mrs. Hutchinson reveals herself as the
true villain of the story. While Jackson’s portrayal of such an incomprehensibly atrocious
character touches on nonsensicality, the truth is that her unconventional juxtaposition of a
maternal figure with pure evil shows just how ubiquitous immorality can be. Indeed, in “The
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Lottery,” even the supposedly impregnable framework of a family can be torn apart by the sheer
magnitude of evil.
Overall, the short stories “The Lottery” and “A Municipal Report” collectively serve to
show just how vast the scope of the human psyche can truly be. Whereas “The Lottery”
illuminates how deeply ingrained evil is in all aspects of humanity, “A Municipal Report”
demonstrates how the power of good can be awakened even in the hearts of those who are deeply
pessimistic about society. When these seemingly incompatible works of literature are viewed
side by side, they ultimately show the readers that human emotions cannot be so readily grouped
into categories. On the contrary, as the townspeople of “The Lottery” and the narrator of “A
Municipal Report” have clearly demonstrated, good, evil, and everything in between can
manifest themselves in many surprising ways.
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Works Cited
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” 351-359.
O. Henry. “A Municipal Report.” The Gift of the Magi and Other Short Stories. Ed. Stanley
Appelbaum and Shane Weller. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1992. 55-67.