What feeling is the description of the lottery in paragraph 1 supposed to evoke?

In the opening paragraph of Shirley Jackson's celebrated short story "The Lottery," the reader experiences a sense of ease and security as the narrator describes the serene setting. On the morning of the lottery, the sky is clear and it is sunny outside. The narrator describes the blossoming flowers and rich green grass as the small community gathers in the town square to participate in the lottery. The word "lottery" has a positive connotation, and readers associate the event with a lucky winner and fortunate outcome. The narrator goes on to mention that the lottery in the nondescript rural community takes less than two hours, which gives the villagers enough time to make it home for noon dinner. This additional information contributes to the positive mood surrounding the lottery by describing the event as convenient and timely.

The tranquil setting, small-town atmosphere, and the positive connotation associated with the lottery make the reader feel at ease and comfortable. Jackson purposefully offers the audience a description of an ideal rural community participating in a seemingly joyful, exciting event on a sunny day to heighten the impending horror the reader will experience once they discover the true meaning of the lottery. The audience is manipulated into letting their guard down, and the tranquil atmosphere at the beginning of the story is juxtaposed with the jarring brutality of the final scene. Overall, the welcoming mood at the opening of the story establishes a sense of comfort and lulls the reader into experiencing a sense of security, which is designed to highlight the barbarity and violence of the lottery when it is finally revealed.

How does the description of the lottery in paragraph 1 affect the reader's feelings?

Here is the first paragraph:

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 26th 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.

The opening paragraph, almost journalistic in its detached description, is meant to describe the lottery as being an ordinary part of ordinary lives. The tone of the opening is light-hearted and upbeat, conveying pleasure through the warmth of a summer day, flowers in bloom, and the "rich" green grass. This seems like a festive occasion in an everyday, safe, all-American town.

This description disarms us: we are certainly not on guard for the horror this particular ritual will turn out to be. We are lulled into a sense of safety that makes the subsequent shock all the more intense. It is only later—as we go back over this seemingly bright, light, and sparkling paragraph—that an ominous note appears: why would people want to "be through" this event so quickly?

I would argue that the opening paragraph of "The Lottery" is meant to lull the reader into a false sense of security, the better to make the shocking ending all the more effective.

As the story begins, it just seems like any other pleasant sunny summer's day in late June. The flowers are blossoming, the grass is richly green, and the locals are gathering together in the village square for a lottery. What could be more normal than that? At this early stage in the story we have no reason to think there's anything especially weird going on. It just seems like the kind of scene you'd witness in countless villages at this time of year across the length and breadth of America.

The fact that everything initially appears so normal, so civilized, makes subsequent events all the more disturbing. This is the last place on earth where we'd imagine such a barbaric ritual taking place. And even as the true nature of the lottery is finally revealed we still can't quite get our heads around the fact that something like this could happen in the middle of such an ordinary, regular village in the heart of New England.

This is largely because Jackson has constructed her story in such a way as to make the brilliant mid-summer sunshine of the opening paragraph a counterpoint to the moral darkness on display in this age-old ritual of human sacrifice. In figurative terms, the darkness prevails, but only against the literal backdrop of a glorious summer's day. It is this contrast of light and shade that discomforts the reader, making us more amenable to Jackson's disturbing suggestion that there is great evil lurking just beneath the surface of so-called civilized life.