Kids fill their pockets full of rocks and plans are discussed about making a new box. They can not wait to attend and finally get it over with. This drawing seems to transform the people. Tension builds before the lottery occurs, but the townspeople are still able to joke with one another. Tension increases in the story when the author, Shirley Jackson, implies to the reader that Mr. Hutchinson has drawn the marked paper.
The men and women soon follow slowly. Mr. Summer, the coordinator of the lottery, enters the village square with a black box followed by Mr. Graves. The reader is informed that the lottery use to be conducted on wood chips but Mr. Summers eventually confidence the village to switch to small pieces of paper. The crowd grows silent as Mr. Summers approaches the black box and begins to mix the paper within it around. Simultaneously the reader is introduced to Tessie Hutchinsons, a village member, as she joins her family in preparation for the lottery.
Just as the lottery is about to begin, Mrs. Hutchinson, a woman in the village, runs into the town square, noting that she was late because she forgot about the lottery until she realized her children were not at home. The lottery then begins. The head of each household is called up and draws a single slip of paper from the black box until everyone has one. When all of the slips of paper are opened, it is learned that Mr. Hutchinson has “it”, and Mrs. Hutchinson immediately begins to protest. Because the Hutchinson family has five members, five new slips of paper and put into the black box.
Then he calls everyone’s name in town. After he finishes calling names, everyone in town opens their papers. Bill Hutchinson received the winning ticket and Tessie protest against the lottery. Then everyone in her family redraws and it is Tessie who drew the paper with the black dot on it. Then villagers grab stones, and point them at Tessie.
The Lottery is a story about a tradition that has been going on for many years, but leads to death at the end. In the town square, villagers gather and watch as Mr. Sumemers brings out the black box, that is part of the tradition known as The Lottery, and mixes the slips in the box. He calls up each family and if they get a blank paper, they are safe and if they get a paper with a black dot on it, they get “the lottery”. In other towns, the lottery used to go on for 2 days straight. In the town square, the children are gathering stones and organizing them, the women are talking to each other, and the men are discussing their jobs and taxes.
Slowly the villagers go up and select a paper from the mysterious black box that stands beside Mr. Summers. After everyone has selected their papers they each unfold them and hold them up in the air. A villager named Mr. Hutchinson turns out to have a sort of different paper though. His family is then told to redraw from the box and his wife turns out to be the lottery winner. Her prize is being stoned to death.
Mr. Summers asks Bill, Tessie 's father how many kids he has and he replies, 3 validating the number of people in the family. Each family member has to draw another paper and hope there is nothing on it. When they all draw and open their slips, they see Tessie has drawn the paper with the black dot on it. Tessie being shocked and scared for her life yells “It wasn’t fair “and that she didn’t have enough time to draw her paper (Jackson 542) . Without hesitation Mr. Summers orders everyone to hurry up, The kids, and the villagers, including Tessie’s family ignore her as they stone her to death “Well everyone now we’ve got to hurry up to get the job done in time” ordered Mr. Summers (Jackson 542).
Everyone who lives in the village, even the children, draws a piece of paper from the black box and doesn’t look at it until everyone draws theirs. When everyone finishes drawing, you turn your piece of paper over and the one with the mark on in, which is marked with coal, is the one who wins the lottery. But if you this lottery it isn’t a good thing. The person who wins the lottery, the one with the marked sheet of paper, gets stoned to death. The villagers believe that if they have a lottery before cropping season they will have a good season.
As he told everyone to circle around a black box from which everyone is gonna draw from, everyone was getting more nervous by the minute. He makes sure that one from every family is present, almost like a representative from every family. As Mr Summers is making sure everyone is present at the meeting, Old Man Warner–oldest man alive from the village– talks to Tessie Hutchinson about a village where they want to terminate the lottery process for good. Old Man Warren gets furious and blames the young people for wanting to banish the lottery. “ “ Pack of crazy fools “ he said “ listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them.
Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson wins the lottery and is stoned to death by the other villagers. The lottery is a tradition, therefore, Mrs. Hutchinson has no choice but to accept her prize. The author used several clues throughout the story that hinted toward the outcome. One clue was that the boys of the town collected and saved the smoothest and roundest stones. Another clue was the hesitation of the men to help hold the black box.