“The Lottery”

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson Shirley Jackson (1919 -1965)

born in San Francisco, California, was an American author who wrote short stories and novels. After moving to Rochester New York, for college, she first attended the University of Rochester, before graduating with a BA from Syracuse University in 1940.

Outcast and Social Victim Shirley Jackson’s own life

has serious effects on her writings, especially on “The Lottery.” Her early life was not a peaceful one. She preferred to stay in her room and write poetry rather than go outside and play with other children.

Outcast and Social Victim Her college life was not great either because she

dropped out and was put in a mental institute. After she was released, her married life started. Jackson married in 1940 to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a Jewish intellectual who encouraged her rebellion. He also encouraged her to become a severe critic who smoked too much, ate too much, and used drugs.

Vermont and a Split Personality

Jackson must’ve been the quintessential outcast in the town. Married to a Jew, already having been committed to a mental institution, Jackson would have been easily seen as “the other.”

It was Jackson's fate, as a faculty wife and an eccentric newcomer in a staid, insular village, to absorb the reflexive anti-semetism and anti-intellectualism felt by the townspeople toward the college.

Vermont and a Split Personality

Jackson was in many senses already two people when she arrived in Vermont. One was a turgid, fearful ugly-duckling, permanently cowed by the severity of her upbringing by a suburban mother obsessed with appearances. This half of Jackson was a character she brought brilliantly to life in her stories and novels from the beginning: the shy girl, whose identity slips all too easily from its foundations. The other half of Jackson was the expulsive iconoclast, brought out of her shell by marriage to Hyman — himself a garrulous egoist very much in the tradition of Jewish '50's New York intellectuals — and by the visceral shock of mothering a quartet of noisy, demanding babies.

Vermont and a Split Personality

This second Shirley Jackson dedicated herself to rejecting her mother's sense of propriety, drank and smoked and fed to buttery excess — directly to blame for her and her husband's early deaths — dabbled in magic and voodoo, and interfered loudly when she thought the provincial Vermont schools were doing an injustice to her talented children. This was the Shirley Jackson that the town feared, resented and, depending on whose version you believe, occasionally persecuted.

Shirley Jackson (1919-1965)

Her novel Hangsaman (1951) and her short story "The Missing Girl" (from Just an Ordinary Day, the 1995 collection of previously unpublished and/or uncollected short stories) both contain certain elements similar to the mysterious real-life December 1, 1946, disappearance of 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore Paula Jean Welden of Stamford, Connecticut. This event, which remains unsolved to this day, took place in the wooded wilderness of the Glastenbury Mountain near Bennington in southern Vermont, where Jackson and her family were living at the time.

Shirley Jackson (1919-1965)

Shirley Jackson (December 14, 1919 - August 8, 1965) was an American author who wrote short stories and novels. Her most famous work is her short story "The Lottery," which combines a peaceful small-town-America setting with a horrific shock ending. The tone of most of her works is odd and macabre, with an impending sense of doom, often framed by very ordinary settings and characters.

First Publication and Reaction

1948 in the New Yorker magazine “The Lottery is reported to have generated

more negative letters from readers than any other story previously published by the magazine. Many cancelled their subscriptions to the magazine

Readers were offended by the work and its suggestion that evil could be so easily and commonly carried out. They felt the stoning was a pointless, arbitrary, violent sacrifice.

The End

First Publication and Reaction

Some people actually called to see where the town was so that they could go and watch the lottery.

Shirley Jackson received over 300 letters that summer alone—”I can count only thirteen that spoke kindly to me. Even my own mother scolded me: ‘Dad and I did not care at all for your story…it does seem, dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days. Why don’t you write something to cheer people up?’”

Shirley Jackson’s Response Generally, she refused to explain the

meaning of the story. She did once tell a journalist: “I suppose I

hoped, by setting a particularly brutal rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity of their own lives [but] I gather that in some cases the mind just rebels. The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer at the end would amaze you.”

Ancient Ritual Sacrifice

In ancient Athens, Greece, Athenians believed that human sacrifice promised fertile crops.

By transferring one's sins to persons or animals and then sacrificing them, people believed that their sins would be eliminated, a process that has been termed "scapegoat"

A similar ritual sacrifice occurs with Tessie Hutchinson.

This explains the village member's remark, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”

Scapegoat

Scapegoat- This is a person, group, or thing assigned responsibility for the perceived faults of a given society. The term has many roots in the ancient world. In modern times the holocaust is often pointed to as an example of scapegoating by which 6 millions Jews were killed under direction of Adolf Hitler. Hitler played on popular sentiment in his country at the time by blaming Jews for the loss of the first world war and the economic woes of Germany.

Historical Context “The Lottery” was written in 1948. After World War II Americans tended to

imitate those around them rather than follow their own separate paths.

Encouraging this conformity was the spread of television, which broadcast the same set of images to Americans scattered through the country.

In politics, people feared the spread of Communism, leading to the Un-American Activities Committee, the Hollywood blacklist, and by 1950, McCarthy’s Communist “witch hunt”

In the story, the townspeople are swept away by the tide of conformity, and the lottery goes ahead as always.

Historical Context By 1943 news of the Nazi concentration

camps had finally reached America. A number of Americans responded with horror

and concern that communities could have stood by and silently allowed the Holocaust to occur.

Jackson hints at a similar situation in her story when the townspeople are unable to fully question or prevent the brutal lottery practice, and in fact, participate in it.

Biblical Allusion

“The Lottery” alludes to the Biblical story in which Jesus frees an adulterous woman, directing who is without sin to cast the first stone. No one throws stones at her.

Unfortunately, no one in “The Lottery” stops this stoning. Tessie becomes their scapegoat; she pays for their sins.

Ritual without meaning Because there has "always been a

lottery“, the villagers feel compelled to continue this horrifying tradition.

They focus on its gruesome nature, for they "still remembered to use stones" even after they have "forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box“.

The story may be saying that society tends toward violence instead of society's need for civilized traditions.

Mob violence The horrible actions exhibited in groups

(such as the stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson) do not take place on the individual level, for individually such action would be called "murder."

On the group level, people classify their atrocious act simply as "ritual."

When Mrs. Hutchinson arrives at the ceremony late, she chats sociably with Mrs. Delacroix. But after Mrs. Hutchinson falls victim to the lottery selection, Mrs. Delacroix chooses a "stone so large" that she must pick it up with both hands.

On the individual level, the two women regard each other as friends, but on the group level, they betray that relationship, satisfying the mob mentality.

Symbolism

Black: The color for death, mourning,

punishment The black box used to draw lots and the

slip of paper with a black mark pointing out the 'winner' are mentioned too frequently to be coincidental.

Symbolism

Black box: Coffin? Evil secret hidden away?Black spot on paper: Sin? A “black mark” on one’s record is negative; black mark: unclean?

Symbolism

Black Box– The box is old; the paint is peeling, and the

wood is splintered. This condition reflects the fading of the tradition in other villages as well as the villager's questioning of the lottery in this village.

However, they will not replace the box, just like they will not stop the lottery.

Symbolism

The Lottery Itself: Symbolizes any number of social

problems that we blindly continue even though they are outdated

The setting: no specific name/place indicates this

is anytown, USA; the contrast of the town with the ritual helps build suspense

Symbolism: Names

Summers: the season of summer is associated with youth, strength, growth, prime of life, warmth, leisure, prosperity, happiness, blooming, blossoming

Graves : the obvious grave = place of entombment/death

Grave = serious; hints that the lottery may not be a frivolous contest (“Mr. Graves said gravely”)

Critics have said that Jackson creates balance by having Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves share in the responsibilities of the ritual: Life brings death, and death recycles life.

Parable Many believe “The Lottery” to be a modern-

day parable—a story that presents a moral lesson through characters who represent ideas.

The focus in a parable is not to develop character or other typical plot elements.

You’re not told the lesson in a parable—you are to figure out what the lesson is.

Themes(almost done…)

Acts of violence, hatred, murder are not acceptable just because many people participate

Society is reluctant to reject outdated traditions, ideas, rules, laws, and practices.

People are not all good or all evil but a mixture of both.

Horrifying acts of violence can take place anywhere at anytime, and they can be committed by the most ordinary people.

Following the crowd can have disastrous consequences.

The unexamined life is not worth living. Many more ideas/themes can be applied to

“The Lottery”

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

Symbols The black box The color black The stones The officials: Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves Tessie Hutchinson Mrs. Delacroix Mr. Warner (giving warning) Mr. Adams The black dot Destroyed wood

Advent of summer (June) Agrarian village Coal

Leitmotif In order to bring together the symbols into a

cohesive whole, we need some means of explicating (to clarify the meaning of or explain) the story.

One means to do this is by first recognizing that there is a Biblical allusion to the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman. However, in Jackson’s version, there is no hand of mercy to stay the stones.

Peter Kosenko’s Reading The village is a blank slate (no name, no

time, no place) on which we can project ourselves. No wonder that this story received more mail than any other New Yorker story published to date.

The story on one level is about the common practice of scapegoating.

Capitalism But on another level, it’s about the

economic productivity of this village and how to keep that productivity in place

Thus, Kosenko argues, we need to look at the economic hierarchy of the village, starting from the wealthiest and going down to the workers and their wives and children.

Hierarchy Mr Summer’s is the wealthiest: he owns the

coal mine in town. He also more “time and energy to devote to civic activities than others.”

Then comes Mr. Graves, its postmaster.

Then Mr. Martin, the only grocer in town. The box is stored in their offices; also, the

slips are prepared the night before the lottery in Mr. Summer’s office.

There exists a distinct possibility that the lottery is fixed.

More Hierarchy Next down one might consider Old Man Warner to

be an informal authority or patriarch. He’s been through the lottery 77 times.

Then comes working males, such as Mr. Adams, Mr Hutchinson. They are closely followed by their sons (who draw in their fathers’ absence).

Then come women. Based on the women’s shabby clothing and the fact of how the boy’s respond (or not) to their mothers’ authority, one can easily see the women as largely powerless.

More Hierarchy Last of all come those who cannot work, such as

Mr. Dunbar (who has a broken leg) or those families with a dead father.

And at the very bottom are those who rebel or question the system, such as Tessie. Note he she tells her husband “to go up there” to draw the lottery ticket.

Kosenko makes a great point when he notes that those most marginalized are those most familiar with the terror of the lottery; thus, when the slip is drawn, the women immediately speculate on who has been chosen.

Another Possibility: Tradition

In part, the story is a reaction against blindly following such traditions as scapegoating.

Much of the ceremony and artifacts of the lottery have been lost, such as the salute, wooden ballots, etc.

Also, there is a hint in what Old Man Warner says (“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”) that the lottery once served as a blood sacrifice to produce good crops, but that connection seems to have been forgotten.

Historical Context We also have to remember that Jackson

wrote this story following WWII, in which Jews had been scapegoated by the Nazis. This period was almost unimaginable to us. Approximately 60 million people died in WWII, and the war provoked incredible violence from a variety of nations.

Work Ethic Clearly one of the traditions of the village is

the work ethic. Throughout the lottery, there is emphasis

given on getting back to work quickly.

Men derive their status from work; women lack status in raising children and lacking jobs.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson was originally published in 1948 in the New Yorker magazine, one of the most important literary magazines in American culture.

After its publication, "The Lottery" is reported to have generated more negative letters from readers than any other story previously published by the magazine.

Readers were offended by the work and its suggestion that evil could be so easily and commonly carried out.

Stoning

In early Bible History, stoning was the (perhaps surprising to many) God-commanded Israelite method of executing those found guilty of the most serious offenses against His Law.

Unlike most other forms of capital punishment, stoning had no specific executioner, "all the congregation shall stone" (see verses below).

Why was it so controversial?

One may well wonder why audiences were so offended by this work; it would be simplistic to suggest that the readers were any narrower in their thinking than are contemporary readers.

More likely, readers at the time of initial publication were still reeling from the events of World War II.

Proud of America's effort to help put an end to fascism, we saw ourselves as the world's beacon of hope. Jackson challenges such a view. The single most remarkable aspect of Nazi Germany was the holocaust which resulted in the deaths of 6,000,000 Jews who had committed no crime, but were punished for their religious persuasion. Americans had come to believe that such a thing could ever happen here and that we had acted to stop such atrocities.

Terminology Scapegoat- This is a person, group, or thing assigned

responsibility for the perceived faults of a given society. The term has many roots in the ancient world. In modern times the holocaust is often pointed to as an example of scape goating by which 6 millions Jews were killed under direction of Adolf Hitler. Hitler played on popular sentiment in his country at the time by blaming Jews for the loss of the first world war and the economic woes of Germany.

Foreshadowing- In a story this is the presentation of people or things that appear to be essentially insignificant but later prove to be central to the story. For example, the piling of the rocks by the boys seems harmless, but the rocks take on a much more serious meaning later in the tale.

Names are Symbols

Family name of Delacroix in French means "of the cross," however, Mrs. Delacroix was one of the least Christian townspeople since she picks up the biggest stone to cast at Tessie.

"Mr. Graves." Graves denotes death.

"Mrs. Hutchinson" was a symbolic name. The name of Jackson's victim links her to Anne Hutchinson,. Anne Hutchinson was basically "thrown out" of Puritan society because she went against the teachings of the church by holding her own meetings in the home.

Joe Summers, the name represents: a new time, a fresh start: change.

2 most important characters are Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves because they both have really important jobs in the story, Postmaster and head of coal company. Summers was not conservative however, Graves was, lots of comparisons in the story and in their names.

The Black Box and Other Symbols

In regard to the black box in "The Lottery," the condition is also symbolic.

The color black denotes death, and the box itself is enclosed, thus indicating that whoever is chosen will be closed in by the crowd.

The box is old; the paint is peeling, and the wood is splintered. This condition reflects the fading of the tradition in other villages as well as the villager's questioning of the lottery in this village.

The three-legged stool is symbolic of the trinity--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Concerning the date June 27: June 27 falls between the Summer Soltice (June 21) and Independece day (July 4)......Paganism and democracy