Why no one should just go along with traditions: A Book Review on Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is by far one of the most interesting short stories I have ever read. The writing approach on this one makes it stand out from the rest of the crowd because how it contradicts the reader’s expectation of the flow of the story.
First, I thought it was just going to be an ordinary lottery with a prize for the lucky winner, a prize I never thought would be the winner’s life itself. The lighthearted opening and the unanticipated conclusion are truly unexpected and that’s what makes this story chilling yet great at the same time.
Jackson began the story by describing the weather of a summer day in a seemingly ordinary story in an ordinary town. It was the morning of June 27th in a small town populated by 300 people. Around ten o’clock, all the townsfolk began to gather in the town square between the post office and the bank to participate in the annual tradition of the lottery.
Having the school over for the summer, children gathered first and began to play. Several young boys started to collect smooth and rounded stones and created a big pile of rocks in the corner of the square.
The men of the town came to the square talking about taxes, tractors, planting, and rain. Eventually, the women arrived shortly after and began calling their children and the kids came reluctantly. Mr. Summers who ran a coal business appeared in the square a bit late carrying nothing but an old black wooden box that he immediately placed on a three-legged stool.
Every year, they do this kind of tradition and yet they kept their distance from the box also every year Mr. Summers suggests replacing the box but the people do not want to replace it. That goes to show just how sacred and important that wooden box is to them despite the fact that the purpose of the tradition itself had been long forgotten by them.
Soon, the lottery began. The official read the names of every family’s head and every head of the household came forward to get their paper slips. A nervous tension began to settle across the town’s square. After the heads of each household have drawn their slips, they’d opened it all at once and Bill Hutchinson had been selected.
Next, the Hutchinson family: Bill, his wife Tessie, and young children Bill Jr, Nancy, and Davey's names were put in the box. The family then drew the slips, the Hutchinson children opened first their slips but it was blank and so was Bill’s paper meanwhile Tessie received the paper with a black dot of a heavy pencil. She was the winner of that year’s lottery, unfortunately.
Mr. Summers ordered the town to finish quickly, and so they did. Children and adults started to grab stones from the ground, from the pile of rocks in the corner of the square, and even gave some to Bill Jr. The crowd began stoning Tessie Hutchinson mercilessly and all that could be heard across the town was the scream of the poor lady. And that’s it, she got stoned to death. What a horrible way to die.
The main lesson of Shirley Jacksons’ short story “The Lottery” states that following a tradition or a practice and not knowing its’ purpose is quite dangerous. In the story, the town had long forgotten the exact purpose of their ritual or tradition and is simply just doing it because they held it every year.
Their tradition also comes with a delusion saying that sacrificing an innocent life will bring good to their crops and make fortune in their harvests as what the Old man Warner said “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. The only logic I can get from this story is that they thought that if they kill somebody or sacrificed someone, they will get to harvest their crops more.
So, if I put it in a way, the townsfolk in that small town are like a tribe that dances in circles with a bonfire in the middle, chanting and singing, hoping that their god would be pleased by whatever they are doing. Maybe, I went too far explaining but what I’m trying to say is that following a practice blindly by sacrificing someone for one’s advantage should be stopped and abandoned
Now, let’s take a good look at the underlying structure of this one-of-a-kind story. On how Jackson lured the readers into this unassuming story thinking it is just an ordinary one. How Jackson gave clues to the readers about the ending of the story right in the first three paragraphs and how she made the readers less likely to anticipate the ending.
At the beginning of the story, Jackson set up a comforting mood for the readers by describing how perfect that summer day of June 27th was, eventually hooking up the audience.
She lured the reader into thinking that the town and its citizens are ordinary people living in an ordinary area. She continued to describe things in detail and made the readers make their assumptions or conclusions based on the story’s ordinariness. So no one could anticipate the ending.
Jackson gave clues to the readers when children started to gather stones and stack them in piles. “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix, eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys,”.
That particular scene in the story hinted that something bad or at least something will happen because it is weird for boys to stack rocks into a pile and even guard it so no one can steal their rocks. At first, I thought that those boys are just playing and they were stacking it so they can play with it later after the lottery. But after reading the story, I figured that they exactly know what they were doing and what they are reserving that pile of rocks for.
The uneasiness of the townsfolk towards the lottery is odd. I mean, that’s a lottery. You should feel excited and interested and not nervous. Before the lottery began, people kept their distance and even hesitates when Mr. Summer asked for help.
That’s not what I expected from people who are looking forward to the lottery. And in drawing the slips in the lottery, everyone was nervous and tense, it’s as if they do not want to participate in the first place, or is it because they are nervous since they want to win so badly. I didn’t realize what was going on until the very end.
Regardless of how Shirley Jackson structured this short story, the message is clear that no one should just go along with traditions without thinking or questioning them. The writers’ goal in producing this story was to make readers aware that not all traditions in which we participate are beneficial. She wishes to inspire others to consider the underlying meaning of their festivities and customs, as well as to completely grasp if what they are doing is truly right or bad.
This short story piqued my interest and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone willing to spend 15 minutes of their time reading this masterpiece.