Synopsis: The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson, published on June 26, 1948, in The New Yorker. Set in a small rural town, it tells of the annual celebration of a community lottery that brings all its inhabitants together in the town square. On a sunny day in June, men, women, and children participate in the event with a disturbing naturalness, waiting expectantly for the draw. As the process progresses, details about the tradition and the rigid social structure that sustains it are revealed. What begins as a routine act hides a disturbing truth.
Warning
The following summary and analysis is only a semblance and one of the many possible readings of the text. It is not intended to replace the experience of reading the story.
Summary of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
On the quiet morning of June 27, the residents of a small town of around three hundred people gather in the square between the post office and the bank. It is a sunny and warm day, with flowers in full bloom and an almost festive atmosphere. The children are the first to congregate, playing and chatting about the end of the school year. Some of them, like Bobby Martin, Harry Jones, and Dickie Delacroix, start to collect stones and pile them up in a corner. Meanwhile, the village men gather in small groups to chat about everyday matters, and the women arrive shortly afterward, exchanging greetings and trivial comments before joining their husbands.
The event that brings everyone together is the annual lottery, a tradition kept alive in the village since immemorial. It is organized by Mr. Summers, a jovial man with a round face who runs the village coal business. He arrives with a worn, old black box, which he places on a three-legged stool with the help of Mr. Graves, the postman. Although deteriorated, the box is a relic that the inhabitants are reluctant to replace, as it connects them to the village’s past. It is even said to be made from pieces of its original predecessor.
Before starting, the usual preparations must be made. Lists are drawn up of families and their respective representatives, who will take the papers from the box to replace the old wooden tokens used when the village was more miniature.
The draw begins with the names of the heads of the families being called. Each man approaches the box and draws a slip of paper without looking at it until everyone has taken part. Some whisper that in other villages, they are considering abolishing the lottery, which provokes the indignation of Old Man Warner, the oldest man in the town. For him, abandoning the tradition would be an act of folly, a break with a custom that, according to an old saying, ensured a good harvest: “Lottery in June, abundant corn in the fall.” His disdain for the young and his resistance to change is evident.
When all the family representatives have taken their papers, the tension in the square intensifies. Finally, they give the signal for them to be checked. A murmur goes through the crowd when it is discovered that the marked piece of paper is Bill Hutchinson’s. His wife, Tessie, protests immediately, claiming that the draw was unfair and that her husband was not given enough time to choose. However, the others ignore or reprimand her for not accepting the situation with good sportsmanship.
Following the established procedure, it is now the Hutchinson family’s turn to repeat the draw, but this time among its members: Bill, his wife Tessie, and their three children, Bill Jr., Nancy, and little Dave. Five pieces of paper are placed in the box, one with a black mark. Each person draws a piece of paper without opening it until everyone has taken one. The first to reveal his is little Dave, with the help of Mr. Graves. It is a blank piece of paper, which provokes a sigh of relief from the crowd. Next, Nancy and Bill Jr. show theirs, which are also blank. Finally, Bill Hutchinson reveals his: it is empty. Tessie is the last to check her paper; as soon as the black mark is seen, the atmosphere changes completely.
In a subdued voice, Mr. Summers confirms the result: “It’s Tessie.” Her husband snatches the paper from her hands and shows it to the others. At that moment, the process reaches its culmination. The crowd, which until then had maintained a tone of expectation and camaraderie, is transformed into a mob determined to complete the ritual. Although many of the ancient ceremonies related to the lottery have been forgotten, an essential part remains intact: the use of stones.
The children, gathering stones in the square from the start, now have ammunition. Some adults pick up larger stones, like Mrs. Delacroix, who grabs one with both hands and encourages the others to hurry. Even little Dave, Tessie’s son, is given a few stones to participate with. In the center of the square, surrounded by the villagers, Tessie raises her hands in supplication and cries out that the lottery is unfair. However, her words are lost in the air when the first stone hits her on the head. The crowd, led by Old Man Warner and other villagers, continues the tradition while Tessie screams in vain: “It’s not fair, it’s not right!” But her fate is already sealed.
With this brutal act, the lottery ends. In a matter of minutes, normality will return to the village, and people will go back to their homes for lunch as if nothing had happened.
Analysis of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
Character analysis:
Tessie Hutchinson is the most crucial character in the story, not only because she becomes the final victim of the lottery but also because she is the only one who, albeit belatedly, questions the fairness of the event. At first, Tessie seems like just another community member: she arrives late to the ceremony with a relaxed, even amused, attitude. However, her reaction changes drastically when her family is selected. She becomes the only voice of protest in the village, claiming that the lottery was unfair. Her plea is ignored by the crowd, which highlights the group’s indifference to individual suffering. Tessie is a tragic character who embodies the irony of tradition: she does not question the practice until she is personally affected, but by then, it is too late.
Tessie’s husband, Bill Hutchinson, embodies passivity in the face of tradition. Unlike his wife, he shows no resistance or protest when his family is selected. When Tessie begins to object, he reprimands her and accepts the outcome without question. His attitude reflects submission to the established order and an inability to challenge an entrenched custom, even when it affects those he loves. Instead of defending his wife, he participates in the continuation of the ritual, which underlines how tradition can turn people into accomplices of violence.
Mr. Summers is in charge of running the lottery and is one of the most influential people in the community. He is described as a jovial and sociable man who runs the village coal business. Despite his affable tone and central role in the event, his attitude is cold and mechanical. He organizes the lottery with the same naturalness with which any other community event would be carried out, showing no emotion at its outcome. His attitude reflects the normalization of the ritual and the lack of moral questioning about it.
Old Man Warner is the oldest inhabitant of the village and the lottery’s central defender. His role is to preserve the tradition and belittle any attempt at change. He mocks the villages that have abandoned this practice, branding them as “crazy” and “young fools.” For him, the lottery is an ancestral custom that should not be altered, and he associates it with the village’s prosperity. His blindness to the brutality of the ritual reflects the conservative mentality that justifies violence in the name of tradition.
Mrs. Delacroix is a secondary character who exemplifies the ease with which the community participates in collective violence. At the story’s beginning, she is friendly with Tessie, and they exchange trivial comments. However, at the story’s climax, she becomes one of the first to pick up a large stone to stone Tessie with. Her behavior reflects the rapid transformation of the every day into the brutal and how loyalty and friendship dissolve when it comes to following the established norm.
The village children, including Bobby Martin, Harry Jones, and Dickie Delacroix, are witnesses to and participants in the event. Their initial behavior, picking up stones and piling them up, anticipates the story’s outcome. The fact that the children are trained from an early age in this tradition reinforces the idea that violence has become normalized within the community.
Little Dave Hutchinson, Tessie, and Bill’s youngest son is a particularly striking character because of the way he becomes involved in the lottery. Unlike the others, he does not fully understand what is happening but is part of the process. In the end, he even receives stones to participate in the murder of his mother, which underlines the total dehumanization of the community and the transmission of violence to new generations.
The setting of the story:
The setting of The Lottery is a small rural village; the exact location is never specified, but it evokes a typical community in the American heartland. The action takes place on June 27, a sunny and warm day at the beginning of summer. The initial description of the setting conveys a sense of tranquillity and normality: the sky is clear, the grass is green and lush, and the flowers are in full bloom. This idyllic beginning contrasts sharply with the story’s outcome, as the reader is led to believe that this is a shared community event, with no initial hint of the violence to come.
The village square is the center of the action and a meeting point for the inhabitants. It is located between the post office and the bank, reinforcing that this is an organized and functional village. The square is large enough to accommodate the approximately three hundred inhabitants who participate in the lottery. Still, at the same time, it is an enclosed and delimited space, which contributes to the feeling of confinement. There are no references to large infrastructures or modernity, which suggests that the village is small, self-sufficient, and clinging to its traditions.
As the narrative progresses, more details about the setting are revealed, underlining the routine and everyday nature of the event. The children play in the square collecting stones, without any apparent purpose at first, but which later turn out to be the tools with which the execution is committed. The men talk about mundane topics such as sowing, rain, and taxes while the women chat and meet with their husbands. This setting reinforces the idea that the lottery is a normal part of village life, as are other community activities such as dances or school festivals.
One of the most symbolic elements of the setting is the presence of the black box where the lottery papers are kept. This old, worn box is a vestige of the past and a tangible symbol of unchanging tradition. It is mentioned that the original box was lost a long time ago, but the villagers are reluctant to make a new one and prefer to hold on to this deteriorated relic. Throughout the year, the box is stored in different places in the village, such as the grocery store or Mr. Graves’ barn, suggesting that it is constantly in the community’s life, even when the lottery is not in progress.
The setting also reinforces the idea of isolation. There is no mention of other nearby communities except when talking about neighboring villages that have abandoned the lottery. This detail suggests that the town where the story takes place is trapped in a tradition that other societies have begun to question and reject. However, in this closed environment, any attempt at change is perceived as a threat to the established order.
Type of narrator:
The story of The Lottery is narrated in the third person by a limited omniscient narrator. From the beginning, the narrator adopts an objective and distant perspective and describes the events calmly and neutrally without delving into the character’s inner thoughts or feelings. Instead, he details their actions and dialogues, allowing readers to observe the story’s development impartially.
This type of narrator contributes to creating the atmosphere of normality that predominates in the story’s first pages. We are presented with a quiet town on a sunny day in June, with inhabitants going about their daily activities while waiting for the lottery. The narrator describes the scene in simple and direct language, with no warnings or apparent signs that something sinister is about to happen. In this way, the reader tends to interpret the lottery as a routine and harmless event until the facts reveal its true purpose.
Despite his apparent objectivity, the narrator occasionally approaches the collective perspective of the village and conveys how the inhabitants see and accept the lottery without question. This is evident in details such as the mention of the Old Man Warner, who despises the villages that have abandoned the lottery, which reinforces the idea that this tradition is immovable and necessary. The narrator also shows us how the villagers interact with each other, offering fragments of dialogue and reactions that hint at social pressure and conformity to custom.
The narrator maintains a certain emotional distance at key moments in the story. Even when Tessie Hutchinson is selected and begins to plead, the story does not adopt her perspective or attempt to generate explicit sympathy. Instead of focusing on her inner anguish, the narrator continues to describe the events objectively: how the villagers collect stones, how they organize themselves to complete the ritual, and how Tessie screams that it’s not fair before she is attacked. This narrative coldness reinforces the brutality of the ending, as it shows how violence has become a mechanical act accepted by the community.
Using this limited omniscient narrator is one of Shirley Jackson’s most effective strategies for creating the story’s impact. The narration makes no judgments and does not anticipate the horror of the outcome, allowing the story to maintain an appearance of normality until the last moment. In this way, the reader experiences the same sense of surprise and shock as an outsider witnessing the lottery for the first time, faced with the terrible revelation that, behind the peaceful appearance of the village, lies a cruel tradition.
Themes addressed in the story:
One of the main themes of The Lottery is blind tradition and its power over society. The story revolves around a ritual maintained for generations without the villagers questioning its purpose or morality. The lottery is treated as just another custom, something so ingrained in the life of the village that its continuity is not questioned. Even the elements that were part of the rite in the past, such as certain chants or specific greetings, have been forgotten. Still, the essence of the event — the selection and execution of an individual — remains unchanged. This lack of questioning shows how tradition can be perpetuated even though its origin and justification have been lost over time. Resistance to change is evident in characters such as the Old Man Warner, who dismisses eliminating the lottery and associates it with the natural order of things. His attitude reflects how many societies defend obsolete or inhumane practices simply because “they have always been done this way.”
Another fundamental issue is normalized violence and collective cruelty. Throughout the story, the lottery is presented as an everyday event where men, women, and children participate without question or remorse. The community, which seems friendly and united at the story’s beginning, shows its true nature when the time comes to execute the selected person. Nobody tries to stop the act; on the contrary, everyone participates actively, including the children, who gather stones and are encouraged to throw them. This theme highlights how violence can become part of the social structure when justified by custom. Tessie Hutchinson’s execution is not considered a murder but a community duty, which emphasizes the dehumanization of the victim in favor of the preservation of tradition.
Social conformity and peer pressure also play a key role in the story. None of the inhabitants dares to challenge the lottery, even when it is a brutal and unjustified act. This is particularly evident in characters such as Bill Hutchinson, who, despite his wife being chosen, does nothing to defend her and joins the rest of the town in accepting the result. Similarly, although Tessie protests when her family is chosen, she shows no sign of questioning before the lottery affects her directly. Her sudden objection only reinforces the idea that the community has been indoctrinated to accept the ritual without question until the threat becomes personal. The story shows how people can be complicit in atrocious acts simply out of fear of challenging the norm and facing rejection by the group.
Another critical issue is the irrationality of superstition. Although the reason behind the lottery is never fully explained, the comment by Old Man Warner, “the lottery in June means good corn in the fall,” suggests that, at some point in the past, this practice may have been linked to the belief that it was necessary to sacrifice something to ensure the fertility of the land. However, this connection has faded over time, and all that remains is an empty ritual turned into an act of violence with no apparent purpose. The persistence of this superstition shows that some societies continue to cling to harmful beliefs with no logical basis simply because they are part of their cultural identity.
Finally, indifference to the suffering of others is another crucial aspect of the story. Until Tessie is selected, the lottery is perceived as just another event, without any significant emotional charge. When her name is announced, the community expresses neither compassion nor doubt; they act as expected. Tessie’s transformation from an ordinary member of the village to a victim demonstrates how quickly a society can turn against one of its own when the power structure and tradition dictate it. The final scene, in which even her young son is encouraged to participate in her execution, emphasizes the extent to which the collective can erase any sense of empathy in favor of compliance with established rules.
Conclusions and General Commentary on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is a story that makes an impact not only because of its unexpected ending but also because of the way it exposes the brutality hidden under the appearance of the everyday. The story is set in a small town where an annual lottery is held, an event that at first seems harmless but ends up revealing itself to be a ritual sacrifice in which a member of the community is stoned to death by their neighbors, friends, and family. Jackson constructs a narrative in which the terrifying does not lie in supernatural creatures or extreme situations but in the way in which violence can be normalized within a society when it is justified through tradition.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the story is its tone. In the first line, the author describes a sunny day where a village gathers in the square in a relaxed and even festive manner. This deceptively calm atmosphere is key to the story, leading the reader to believe that the lottery is a common event, a celebration, or a harmless raffle. The narration advances with apparent calm, showing how the children play and the adults converse as if it were any other community activity. There are no obvious clues to suggest that the outcome will be tragic, which makes the impact of the ending all the more remarkable. Jackson uses this strategy to confront the reader with a disturbing reality: the most terrifying thing is not always the extraordinary but what has become part of the routine.
The story also criticizes social conformity and the power of tradition. No one in the village seems to question the lottery, not even those from whom the lottery has taken loved ones. Obedience to the ritual is absolute, even when its origin has been forgotten. Old Man Warner, the oldest man in the village, defends the practice by arguing that it has always existed and that its abolition would lead to chaos. His position reflects how societies can cling to meaningless customs for fear of change. This attitude is not exclusive to fiction; throughout history, many traditions have endured even when they have had a negative impact, from unjust punishments to systems of social exclusion that persist because they have been there “forever.”
Tessie Hutchinson is a key character who helps us understand the story’s message. At first, she is just one of the crowd, joking with her neighbors and participating happily in the event. However, when her family is chosen and then her name is drawn, her attitude changes completely. Suddenly, the lottery seemed unfair, even though she had not raised any objections in previous years. This highlights a fundamental point: many people only question injustice when it affects them directly. However, the community does not respond to her protest; the whole village, including her friends and family, rejects her and proceeds with the ritual. Tessie’s story shows how ruthless society can be when a norm, however absurd, becomes an unquestionable truth.
Another detail that reinforces the story’s impact is the children’s participation. From the beginning, they are the ones who start collecting stones without the reader knowing that they will be the same ones used to stone the selected person. Even Tessie’s youngest son is given stones to throw, making it clear that violence in the village is not only accepted but passed on to new generations as something normal. Jackson suggests that the cycle of violence is perpetuated because it is instilled from childhood. Children grow up thinking the lottery is a natural part of life without questioning its purpose. Thus, the author suggests that many forms of cruelty and discrimination in society are not born of individual evil but of social teaching and the repetition of unjust practices.
The ending of The Lottery is shocking because it is presented with the same coldness with which the rest of the story is narrated. There is no excessive dramatization or change of tone to warn the reader of what is to come. The story continues its logical course within the village’s rules: Tessie has been selected and must be stoned to death. Her pleas are ignored, and the last image is of the crowd approaching with stones in their hands. This denouement, told with the same neutrality with which the sunny day, in the beginning, was described, reinforces the message that the real threat is not an evil, supernatural figure or a villain but society itself when it accepts violence as part of its structure. In this sense, the story not only criticizes the barbaric practices of the past but is also a warning about the forms of oppression and cruelty that can still exist today, disguised as custom or necessity.
