The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Analysis

The “Prize”

This treacherous and morbid story begins on a beautiful and peaceful morning. A small town, consisting of nearly 300 citizens, gathers in between the post office and the bank to attend their traditional event called the “lottery”. I think that it is an event that serves as a distinguisher for prevention of overpopulation with no objection by the members of society, such as slavery.

The name of the event is something that obviously shouldn’t be confused with a random drawing of financial loss or gain, but something that ends in utter gore, violence and ultimately death.

That being said, the citizens of this twisted settlement don’t seem to feel the urgency towards the beginning of the excerpt like you would rightfully expect. The

In this story slavery will be shown how to be similar to the “lottery”. In a sense that the society sees it as a role that has to play in order to make it work, with the unpowerful citizens subject to death and the powerful subject to glory.

While the town begins to slowly assemble, the parents aggressively attempt to gather all their young folks in order to start the event and get it over with. Since the town only contains a small amount of citizens to participate in the “lottery”, the event only takes around two hours.

This reasonable time constraint makes it more convenient to manage and provides less stress for the families of the lucky qualifier to draw the “black dot”. The reason it is more convenient is that it is random drawings. Once all the town citizens get to their place, Mr. Summers makes his grand entrance. Mr. Summers, who seems to be highly respected amongst the town for loyalty, age, wisdom and previous experience, is the moderator for the “lottery”. The amount of respect that Mr. Summers receives for his position, suggests that the “lottery” is a vital aspect of

While arriving on the scene, Mr. Summers reveals the “black box”. (2) This box is a huge part of the tradition, and contains all the recipients of the lottery. (Serves as a mystery box of some sort). The box is recognized and known by the citizens as a respectable object, due to its historical role in determining the outcome of the drawing. It seems to be feared by many and recognized as an object that determines a dramatic destiny.

After Mr. Summers dramatically reveals the box to the citizens, he is assisted by Mr.

Martin and his oldest son Baxter in placing it on a stool for proper display. The rules are reviewed for the lottery and the tradition begins. All the eldest males of the families begin to slowly come forward and draw papers from the “black box”, which previously contained wood chips before the paper slips were introduced. Apparently, the wood chips were used before the town had reached a high population. Once the eldest drew from the box, they would walk back to their families without viewing the results of the drawing. This would cause a lot of commotion and drama in the air, due to the fact that the anticipation was almost too painful to bear. Mr.

Summers then calls out the name that has been selected for the lottery. Mr. Hutchinson’s name