THE LOTTERY BY SHILEY JACKSON

SUMMARY
“The Lottery” is annual ceremony. All townspeople gather and wait for the ceremony to begin. Children play and pick up stones, men talk about rain, tractors and taxes, same joke and as last the women, wearing faded house dresses and sweater come after their menfolk. Tessie Hutchinson is late because of household chores. She talks with her friend, Mrs.Delacroix about reason of her late arrival. Because everybody is there, the ceremony starts and Mr.Summers reads off an alphabetical list of names. Who draws the paper with the black mark on it, he or she win “the lottery” and people stone him or her.
POINT OF VIEW
The story is narrated by third person narration. The narrator does not participate in the story.
SETTING
The place is square of town, between the post office and the bank. The time is the morning of June 27th and around ten o’clock.
IRONY
1. The title is irony. When readers read it, they assume that good things will be lived because lottery brings to mind the conventional ideas such as winner, luck, money, enjoyment and these are positive things. But the lottery symbolizes “death” instead of positive things.
2. Although Mr.Summers also impresses positive things on people because of meaning of his name, he gives death to winner. This is irony.
THEME
One of themes is death. After reading, it is understood that scapegoats are chosen randomly and are not fair. Another is social division. People who attend this ceremony are in power and they also have economic power. For example Mr.Summers is the coal business and he conducts not only lottery, square dances, the teenage club, the Halloween program, as well. He has time and energy to devote civic activities. These indicate that he has leisure and money. Mr.Graves is the postmaster and it is understood that he is high position in the town. Other theme is weakness of women. For example women come square after their menfolk and they wear faded house dresses and sweater. It shows that they work inside of house and reason of Tessie’s late arrival is enough to be exemplified it. The last theme is hypocrisy. At the beginning Mrs.Delacroix is joking with Mrs.Huthincson about her late arrival. After Tessie is selected to be stoned, Mrs.Delacroix forgets their friendship and selects a stone so large she has to pick it up with both hands and says the other man “Hurry up”. This suggests that people are not always as they seem and evil exists in everyone.
Mrs.Tessie wants her married daughters to take part in the drawing with them so that her own chance of survival improves. This is a perfect example to show hypocrisy and devilry exists in every human being. Instead of trying to protect her children, she risks her own children’s safety.
ANALYSIS
The Lottery is very important for townspeople because it is ritual for them. According to townspeople, the lottery causes them to work hard. This sentence shows their thought: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” The black box put papers has significant meaning for them. Although it was old and rust, townspeople don’t want to change it.
Names of Mr.Summers and Mr.Graves have symbolic meaning. Mr.Summers is in charge of black box and conducts the ceremony. His name symbolizes life, wealthy, welfare, but in reality gives that to winner instead of live.
Mr.Graves is also in charge of black box. “It had spent one year in Mr.Graves’ barn.” His name symbolizes gloomy things such as death and his name also refers to theme of the story.