Reflection on The Lottery
七屆五班, 沈安琪, 蔣德柔, 李郇, 陳柏融
The Lottery is a classic short story written by Shirley Jackson, which is
also a story about a deadly annual ritual of contemporary Americian life.
The setting is on June 27 in a small village of 300 people or so where the
locals are all in a strange and nervous mood. As the storyline goes on, all the
village people gathered around the square to hold the ritual --“The Lottery”,
which was conducted by Mr. Summers, who in fact officiated at all the big civic
events. Before the lottery began, children had gathered up stones that were
smooth and round. Mrs. Hutchinson was the only one arriving late for this
important event, claiming that she had accidentally forgot it was the day, June
27.
The lottery goes like this; Mr. Summers first called each head of the
household to draw the lot from a tainted old black box. Once the heads had
participated their part, Mr. Summers wolud allow them to open the paper and
see which family got the one with a big black dot in the center; the paper
signified the family’s being selected. Then, each member of the chosen family
had to draw again and see exactly which specific person had been chosen.
The selected person would be stoned to death in the end as a sacrifice to
ensure a good harvest—just as the oldest man in town Mr. Warner once said,
“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”
Surprisingly, it was Mrs. Hutchinson who had been selected. She started
to protest as soon as she realized that she was the one who had the paper
with a big black dot, but nobody would listen to her. To benefit the village, Mr.
Hutchinson asked her wife to accept the truth that she was selected. Her child,
Dave, also threw the stones at her mother.
Theme
The Lottery provides lots of themes that can be wildly discussed, from
mass violence to human weakness.
Stoning people to death without any reasonable reasons is the most
obvious example for the theme “mass violence”. The townspeople refuse to
judge things in the ideas of justice but prefer to follow the tradition. Although
some people disagree with this outdated tradition, these people who could
actually tell right from wrong never have the courage to stand up and fight for
the right. This timid human weakness keeps them from breaking through the
tradition and advancing. Just as what the townspeople do to the old splintered
black box, the outdated tradition is also kept and people never really take
action to repair it or replace it. The ''fair'' chances of drawing the lottery covers
the sin of this violence. It disguises the evil part of this activity and persuades
people to believe it is a fair tradition. Besides the timid attitude of the
townspeople, human selfishness also shows in this story by stoning people to
death without hesitation even though they might be killing their own relative or
best friend. No one ever stands out against this cruel behavior as long as it is
not a business that will do harm to themselves.
Symbol
Besides the themes discussed above, Shirley Jackson also hides plenty
of symbols in the story to make it more mysterious and meaningful. One
interesting thing is that since The Lottery was published only a few years after
WWII ended, the story might in a way reflect the background of that time; in
other words, there might be symbols that implicate the irony of a war time.
First of all, Mr. Summers is the most suspicious man. Why does he
conduct most of the affairs in the town? Is he really the one who has all the
time and energy? In fact, in the story he runs a coal business, which should be
a busy work. To me, he seems more like a manipulator than an enthusiastic
volunteer. There’s a great possibility that Shirley used Mr. Summers to
represent some people during the war time who held the power and used it to
influence people, leading them to the war.
Secondly, we were informed that the original paraphernalia for the lottery
had been lost long time ago, with only a black retained box to represent the
whole idea. Paralleling this with the WWII, the original reason why people
started the fight had also been forgotten already. The manipulators then made
weak and perfunctory excuses to justify their actions, excuses that were
defenseless and vulnerable as the shabby and stained black box.
Last but not least, the lottery itself. In the story, the villagers, having known
that other villages had given up the barbarous and uncivilized tradition, did not
question or confront it, but still kept on this ritual. Likewise, in the WWII,
countries that were involved used the war as a medium, boasting to the world
about their military weapons and skills, while other countries have already
given up their weapons and headed toward democracy and peace.
A lottery should be a symbol of chance and change; however, the winner
in this story is bound for death. Likewise, political reformation should bring out
hope and change, but if it is revolutionized through war, it might be doomed to
devastation. I think Shirley Jackson used this story on purpose to delicately
emphasize this point.
Connection
The Lottery also reminds me of the literary work Lord of the Flies. With
regard to the plots, they both deliver a twist. At the beginning of the Lottery, it
describes, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh
warmth of a full summer day; the flower were blossoming and the grass was
richly green.” With the words pouring out, a positive and optimistic mood is
evoked, so shall it be for the draw of the lottery. Yet instead, the draw ends up
with the lottery winner being stoned to death. This terrible and stunning twist
can be discovered in Lord of the Flies, which is about a plane in WWII that
crashed on an island. No adult but only the children survived. Those children
elected a leader, made laws, grouped up troops to seek foods. Everything
seemed fine. But it all changed when one day those children saw a dead body
of a pilot. They considered it to be a monster. All of them were scared. Before
long, they were disunited into two cliques and began their crazy and cruel fight.
Like the Lottery, the story also starts with a positive beginning and yet ends up
in the evil side.
Besides Lord of the Flies, another story that could be connected with the
Lottery is a Japanese novel The Ballad of Narayama (猶山節考). The story is
set in a small rural village in Japan during the 19th century. Villagers are
extremely poor so all the adult males have to work very hard and all the girl
babies will be sold to the riches so the families could earn some more money.
There is even an unwritten rule that demands those reaching seventy be
shouldered to a remote mountain waiting to die of starvation. It sounds
inhuman and cruel to us, but this old legend clearly describes the grim rule of
survival. Just like in the Lottery, the old-fashioned villagers still retain their
uncivilized tradition of stoning people to death, in a hope for a harvest. Maybe
it’s because both stories’ are written in the turmoil of wars and both in a way
indicate that people in that time could do anything, whether right or wrong, to
survive.
The Lottery, Lord of the Flies, and the Ballad of Narayama are similar in
some way. Authors all want to satirize the unfairness of the society and the
selfishness of human beings. These stories are just the epitome of the real
society. In those three authors’ hearts, the reality is probably more immoral and
evil.