The Lottery
Shirley Jackson
The work begins on a warm summer day, in fact, "the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green (Jackson, 263)." The perfect day for a lucky winner to receive their lottery prize. Following the story however, the audience grows to understand the miserable irony that this "lucky" day signifies. An initial trigger that this community's lottery is unlike a traditional lottery is the pile of stones laying around in a pile. Why such the emphasis on the pile of stones? Something is obviously askew. Also, by all means, "Mr. Graves" seems like an awfully lucid name for a character with a job as a lottery official, supposedly bringing "luck" to the town. What makes the story interesting and terribly confusing at the same time is the juxtaposition of dark and light imagery. The warm summer day, the feeling of newness the children feel just being released from school for summer break, the joy of Mrs. Hutchinson in her arrival to the drawing of lottery tickets all seem to reveal some kind of jubilant occasion in which one lucky winner will be chosen to receive a great prize. On the opposite end, the character "Mr. Graves", and what his name signifies, and the praise of a young man for his bravery in entering for his family in the lottery, don't seem to match up to the setting. It all makes (horrible) sense in the end when the audience learns of the great "prize" of winning, death by stoning, executed for tradition's sake.
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