Once the scene is set, the firstcharacters to arrive are the children. Their arrival continues the feelings of comfort and normality. Upon reading the story for the first time, the reader is unaware that the gathering of stones by the children is the first sign of things to come.

An indication of a slight change in the tone occurs when it is stated that the men smile rather than laugh at each other's jokes. There is now some apprehension as noted when the "villagers kept their distance" from the stool and the black box. Although there is mention of the lottery, the comparison of this event to others such as dances or Halloween activities keeps the reader from knowing what the lottery entails.

Following some history of the details and procedures of the lottery, the tone of apprehension builds as the lottery begins. The crowd becomes quiet as Mr. Summers reads the names of the families. The author uses words and phrases such as "nervously" and "she held her breath" to build a sense of nervous anticipation in the reader. Tessie Hutchinson's protests of the drawing continue these feelings. Finally, with the statement, "A stone hit her on the side of the head," the tone completes its shift from calm to one of horror.

The tone of "The Lottery" is objective and detached. The narrator writes in the calm, journalistic style of a neutral bystander reporting on a scene they are not part of. This journalistic tone is set in the opening paragraph, which is full of facts—such as the date, (June 27th), how many people participate in the lottery, and how long it takes.

The very neutral tone of the narrator provides a contrast to the shocking and grisly event being described, heightening the reader's surprise and horror at what unfolds. There is nothing in the narrator's tone to tip us off to the fact that this is anything but a normal gathering. There are a few ominous details, such as the piles of rocks the children gather, but primarily the community is depicted as a very ordinary one, composed of farmers and housewives.

Using this kind of deadpan narrative voice is an effective technique. The narrator stands back and lets readers experience the emotions that the "lottery" elicits for themselves.

I think you need to be aware that the tone of any given work does not necessarily stay the same. This is a case in point with "The Lottery", because the tone has a distinct shift from a peaceful, normal, everyday kind of tone to a grimly horrific tone that finishes the tale. Note how Jackson almost from the first sentence deliberately misleads us into thinking that this story is going to be something very different from what it actually is:

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day. the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.

This creates a happy, cheery kind of tone and as we read on and discover that the villagers are gathering together, we expect the lottery to be some form of village fete or festival. Note too how the children, men and women engage in "normal" kinds of activities - the men swap jokes, the women engage in gossip, the children play with stones. There is nothing to indicate the sudden change of tone that leads to the devastating finale.

However, it is as the villagers get whittled down to the Hutchinson family it is clear that the tone subtly changes as Mr. Summers asks Bill to show Tessie's paper in a "hushed voice." As the villagers, and even the friends of Tessie like Mrs. Delacroix rush to gather stones, the tone shifts to one of horror as we realise that the villagers are going to stone Tessie to death.

Thus in this story the tone is not constant - it shifts towards the end of the story from a normal, peaceful tone to one that is frighteningly disturbing.

Tone, referring to the feeling that the author creates, shifts in "The Lottery" from peaceful, calm, and tranquil to cautious to horrific.

In the beginning the setting opens in an everyday American almost nostalgic town. But as the story continues beyond the first page, much of the language contributes to hints of discomfort or nervousness. Words throughout the middle like "nervously", "humorlessly",  "awkwardly", and "a sudden hush fell over the crowd" all help us feel the tension that we as readers don't really understand in the moment. In describing Mrs. Delacroix, Jackson writes:

She held her breath while her husband went forward.

This proves the characters underwent incredible stress and apprehensively anticipated something, but we do not know what until the last 30-40 words.

These last few words demonstrate the final tone of horror. To see a pleasant town use such a brutal form of fertilizing their crops through human sacrifice mortifies the audience.

The setting of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" takes place in a small New England farming village in a relatively isolated region on June 27th. The small, innocuous village is initially depicted as a pleasant place, where the community members are familiar with each other and gather on a beautiful summer day to participate in the lottery. The grass is green, flowers are blossoming, and the citizens seem enthusiastic about the annual lottery. The pleasant, tranquil setting gives the reader a sense of comfort, which deceives the reader and highlights Shirley Jackson's juxtaposition involving the violent, senseless ritual that is about to take place. Shortly after the lottery commences, the peaceful setting seems menacing and ominous. As the lottery gets underway, the mood of the story also becomes anxious and unsettling. When Tessie Hutchinson's name is called, the mood shifts to dreadful and violent as the community members prepare to stone her to death. The pleasant, nonthreatening setting underscores the disparity between the community's outward appearance and their violent nature.

The setting of "The Lottery" is a small American farm town.  Seemingly innocuous, the imagery of this simple town with its blossoming flowers and rich green grass lulls the reader into a comfortable, trusting mood by making the reader believe that the setting feels safe. 

Jackson uses the easy-going mood set at the beginning of the story as a juxtaposition to the dark undercurrents of the town's violent lottery system.  The author's use of setting, especially one so warm and friendly feeling, helps to develop a theme of appearance versus reality in "The Lottery."  The small farming community may have the look of goodness and simplicity, but their reliance on the dark and threatening lottery system belies this carefully constructed facade.

This is a great question, because the mood of the villagers is the eeriest aspect of the story, in my opinion. 

First, the children gather. Jackson says that the children were boisterous. They just finished school, and there was a sense of liberty in the air. The mood of the children was one of excitement. Here is a quote that shows this point:

The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play.

The men gathered next. They seem nonchalant. They talked of planting, tractors, and presumably other mundane things. They also politely smiled and joked on the side. Here is a quote about this:

Soon the men began to gather. surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.

Finally, the women came. They were exchanging gossip and trying to get their children.

They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands...

As one can see, the mood is one of nonchalance, which is erie. They are about to engage in ritualistic murder, and they think nothing of it. It is just a part of their lives. 

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is a story filed with irony and contradictions. The mood, therefore, is very important to the text as a whole.

The story opens in this way:

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2th. But, in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

This leads readers to believe that the mood is one which is lighthearted given the sunny and clear day.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The mood changes rather abruptly given one can sense the tension in the air.  The mood then changes from light conversations and smiles to the following:

When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called. "Little late today, folks." The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three- legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool.

Here, the mood is defined as tense and worrisome.  The villagers are worried about something. This is notated by the distance they keep from the box and stool.

By the end of the story, readers can see the change of mood.  It transforms from the opening of the text, where the day is described as clear and fresh, to the end of the text where the stoning of a villager takes place.  While the scene is depicted as beautiful, the actions depict anything but.

The mood of "The Lottery" is tense and uneasy, setting us up for the story's horrific denouement.

Although it's a glorious summer's day in the village, with the sun shining and the birds singing and everyone gathering for what initially appears to be some kind of fete, we immediately feel that there's something not quite right about the prevailing atmosphere.

Jackson expertly creates this mood of uneasiness through the use of description, such as that of the pile of stones. Then there's the evident anxiety displayed by the men of the village toward the stones as they stand around guarding the pile. The fact that the men smile rather than laugh during what ostensibly looks like a joyous village celebration also generates a mood of deep unease.

Jackson's use of names also adds to the tense atmosphere. The name "Mr. Graves" inevitably conjures up connotations of death, which is what the annual lottery will lead to in due course. That Mr. Graves is the ultimate authority figure in the lottery further points toward a grim, unpleasant outcome.

Since mood is really the feeling a reader gets from a piece of literature, the mood of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" can be described as dreadful, as gloomy, or as horrible.  Because the story begins with such ordinary details as watching a clock or thinking about dinner, the reader must look carefully to detect the tension in the people who though they greet one another, they avoid eye contact.  The grumbling about changing the tradition also gives the observant reader pause as to why people are reluctant.  When the families are gathered and the names drawn, the reader can feel the dark mood intensify as the crowd begins to pick up rocks.  When the mother is selected and protests, she is drowned out by the rocks hitting her and starting the process of her dying in front of even her children.  The mood is dark, depressing, and dreadful in the anticipation and carrying out of a tradition which is blindly followed.