English Blog

The Lottery

By: Shirley Jackson

            The plot of Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, is engaging, brilliant and acutely suspenseful. The title, causes the reader to believe that “winning” the lottery is a good thing. In this particular story, however, it is not. The lottery is mentioned on the fifth line of the first paragraph. At this point, the reader may assume that the lottery is a happy event in which people win some sort of a prize. The plot continues without any mention of what the lottery actually is, and dropping various hints that it may, after all, be a bad thing. For example, at one point it is mentioned that all the children are gathering rocks; although the readers do not yet know what the rocks are for, it sends a foreboding message. And, when Mrs. Hutchinson says, “it wasn’t fair”, it leads the reader to believe that the lottery is not something one wants to win. For these reasons the plot is very engaging, causing the reader to work to put the pieces together in order to fully comprehend the story. The plot is suspenseful because it is not until the last page of the story that the readers figure out what the lottery truly is and what happens to the winner. Overall, the plot of the story was well conceived.

Aside from its remarkable plot, “The Lottery” is also based on an interesting theme. The theme has been described as, “a moral allegory revealing the hidden evil in the human soul” and as “pointless violence.” The theme is very powerful and needs a powerful and moving story to support it. The idea of a lottery to choose a person of a village not only to kill but to stone to death is very powerful. In addition, the idea that Mrs. Hutchinson’s friends were some of the first people to throw stones is very disturbing. The concept of evil in the human soul is portrayed very well in this story about a helpless woman condemned to death by nothing but a slip of paper with a black dot on it.

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