The lottery is the short story written by Shirley Jackson that takes place hundreds of years from now on 27th June in the small town. The people of the town started their day as the typical day but at 10:00 am all of the residents of the town had to report to a town square. This process is led by Mr. Summer. He brought the box with the small paper pieces inside the box with him. When all the families arrived in the town square, he addressed the gathering, and his initial order was to take the role and ensure that who was the head of the family and also know which member not attended this meeting.
Mrs. Hutchinson reached after Mr. Summer had been cursed in, stating that she forget that what day this was to an enjoyment of the people who listened to her. He announced that if a male head of any of the family was deceased or not capable of coming to the meeting in the town square because of some issue as in the case of the Clyde Dunbar’s that he was not able to come to the town square for representing his family because of the broken leg injury, then the wife of the head or the son whose age is above 16 years stand in his place, take his position and pick up the paper piece from the box for their family.
Summary of Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”
After this Mr. Summers announced each of the family name one by one and the representative of this family come near to box and pick the paper piece from a box without looking in the box. This process is for the lottery that was conducted in the town. However, these processes continue until all the families head picks up one of the piece of paper from the box. Few of the people of the town gossiped about how the village in the north was conducting the lottery and what are their processes of the lottery. The older individuals in the gathering appeared to consider that it was ridiculous according to him the lottery in June, is like the corn be dense soon. But the younger members have different thinking according to them this idea is excellent and had the merit. The young people of the crowd are excited and enjoying this process while the older people are annoyed and not happy with this lottery process that was arranged in June.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson theme:
When one of the old men of the town named Mr. Warner drew his lottery ticket from the box, he stated that this was seventy-seventh time that he was participating in this lottery. As in the past, he is almost participating in this lottery event seventy-seventh times. The last some of the people of the town took their lottery tickets before each of the family head opened their tickets to check which family won the lottery. After completing the picking of the lottery ticket process from the box all the families had one lottery ticket that was picked by their family heads and the process is seemed fair because no one sees in the box while taking the piece of the paper (lottery ticket) and each family get equal and fair chance to pick the ticket by their own.
After the end of the picking up of the lottery ticket process, the families now wait to see which family win the ticket and the wait for the announcement of opening the tickets. Mr. Summer announced that the family who had the ticket with the black spot is the one who wins this lottery, so all of the families wished that their piece of paper had black spot and they win the lottery.
All of the people in the crowd especially the young once was looked around and wondering which of the family win the lottery and had the black spot on their piece of paper. When all people checked their ticked Bill Hutchinson, who was the wife of Dunbar announced that she had ticked with black spot and told her eldest son in the excitement to run and told his dad that they win the lottery.
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Tessie Hutchinson instantly becomes defensive and saving that her husband is ill and had not enough time and this wasn’t fair, while people around her told her to calm down, as well as her husband who told her to keep silent and shut her mouth. After this Mr. Summer concentrated on Hutchinson family members that include Bill and Tessie along with their kids, Dave, Nancy, and Bill, Jr. Since the Dave was merely the toddler one. Mr. Grave helped him when his turn comes to draw the ticket from a box. Once again when all the five members of the family had the tickets, they are ordered to open these paper pieces altogether. Nancy and the Bill, Jr. smiled and showed their blank slips so that everyone sees it. Mr. Graves as he helped Dave opened a piece of paper from his sight and each of the people sighed. Finally, the Bill unenthusiastically displayed his blank piece of the paper, so all of the people knew that the Tessie had that black spot piece of paper and won the lottery.
Mr. Summer after this instructed the gathering to finish swiftly as they progressed toward the Tessie with stones that they gathered before that day. Someone even gave few pebbles to the little Dave. Mrs. Hutchinson shouted that it’s not fair as the gathering inclined upon her. By this way the lottery process in the town completed.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson questions:
This story reveals how few traditions that were conducted in small towns are not worth lifeless on to. They thought that the human sacrifice would help their yields grow, however they had no sound basis for creating this correlation, and the death of the related human doesn’t look worth having a few extra corns. This story started pleasantly enough, calming the readers of the story into the false sense of the calm, particularly with the present day associations of winning the lottery, therefore when it turns out to be clear that the reward is death then the readers are that much profoundly appalled.
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