The Lottery

• describe the setting of the story, identify major characters, and summarize the plot; 
• distinguish between denotative and connotative meanings of vocabulary in the text; 
• analyze and interpret symbols in the text; 
• describe themes developed through symbolism in the text.

“The Lottery” begins at the height of summer in a small American town. The children are playing in the sunshine, and the adults are making easy chatter. In a few short pages, however, these relaxed villagers become monstrous, turning on one of their own and murdering the unlucky winner of their annual summer ritual: the lottery.

Published in 1948, “The Lottery” challenges the idealized image of mid-century, small-town America. Within the story’s setting, Jackson’s depiction of ritualistic violence reveals an aspect of the human character absent from this national stereotype, something dark and sinister. The story reveals that cultural norms can disguise the most brutal aspects of human nature, that the unexamined perpetuation of rituals leads to senseless violence, and that a friend can become a foe with an instantaneous stroke of bad luck.

Jackson’s style in “The Lottery” follows in the mode established by modernist writers such as Ernest Hemingway. The descriptive details in the story are sparse, and much of the plot is driven by dialogue. The narrator is removed and abstracted, offering minimal insight into each character’s emotional or psychological experience. This absence of detail poses a psychological challenge for the reader, who is left to make sense of villagers who so routinely and ravenously devour one of their own.

Readers of The New Yorker swiftly responded to the ominous depiction of human nature in “The Lottery” upon its original publication. Hate mail was sent and subscriptions were canceled, though none of it stopped the story from going on to become one of the best- known stories of the 20th century. Repeatedly anthologized and regularly studied in high school classrooms, “The Lottery” asks today’s students to question which of their own cultural rituals may serve to persecute and brutalize those around them.