FREE ESSAY ON SHIRLEY JACKSON'S THE LOTTERY

SHIRLEY JACKSON'S THE LOTTERY

Since the beginning of time man has had the internal drive to congregate and form
relationships with others. From these relationships societies have evolved, and from the
evolution characteristics of humankind have been brought forward. Certain characteristics
have been cultivated as acceptable, while others are labeled as unacceptable. Learned
evil has become present as a means of survival in every society. Humanity's learned evil
is represented by society's relationships formed with one another by a common set of
goals. As in the case of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", the community inherits the evil
of the yearly lottery. The villagers, however, are only afraid of the unknown; to thiem,
evil is whatever would happen if the lottery was not successfully carried out.
Year after year after year for as long as the villagers can remember, there has been an
annual lottery, which comes from "One of the ancient practices that modern man deplores
as inhumanely evil is the annual sacrifice of a scapegoat…for the benefit of the
community (Friedman 63)." The "benefit" behind the lottery seems to be a ritualistic
cleansing of the village from its sins. The villager chosen at random in the drawing
inherits from the community all of the evils of the past year, and then is stoned to
death. Although to others this practice seems barbaric, to them it is a necessary
practice which must be continued from year to year. What the villagers fail to recognize
is that by seeming to wash away their sins by the stoning, they are in fact doing nothing
but creating sins for themselves. A. R. Coulthard states that "it [the lottery] is a
grim…parable of the evil inherent in human nature (226)." However, humans do not
act this way unless they are prompted by an outside source, and as children the villagers
were taught that this is the way life worked. They accepted it first as children, then
later as adults. This was not natural to the children however, the children had to be
taught; they were not born with it. Little children are not brought into this world
knowing right from wrong; through examples of those around them, they discover how
society works. The same holds true for the villagers in "The Lottery". Adults from the
village have accepted the way the system works, and in turn have passed it along. Little
children view their parents as infallible and in turn accept what is passed down to them.
The children from the village have listened and almost take delight in the practice.
Although they have no comprehension as to the reasons that the lottery exists, they
believe in the practice. Children put faith into stories, and the lottery is an example
of that. A person needs to be killed by stones every year, or something bad will happen.
The bad "something" does not even need to be known by the children in order to comply,
merely the threat of the bad "something". Since it is by example that these children are
taught, it is evident that evil in society is learned and not inborn.
Given that evil is learned, then, so in turn are the practices of manifesting them. The
lottery comes every year, and as Old Man Warner stated, "There's always been a lottery
(Jackson 297)." From every civilization there have been ritualistic cleansing methods
similar to that in "The Lottery". The village in discussion is an agricultural village,
and in such villages the life and death cycles are in constant contemplation. In some
ancient societies, it was believed that the sowing and reaping of crops represented the
life cycle. Because of this, cultures began human sacrifices to imitate this cycle
(Griffin 44). In order for a new fresh crop to be ready for harvest in the fall, the
previous year crop must die. The rituals of human sacrifice "were usual and
necessary…for a fertile crop (Friedman 63)." The continuation of this cycle every
year has led the villagers to believe that this is the way it has to be. The tradition
has so firmly ingrained itself into their society that they have become believers of what
the see, such as the quote "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon (Jackson 297)." The
villagers have cultivated this belief into their society so firmly that the very notion
of giving it up seems ludicrous. It is notable that the administrator of this affair is
named Mr. Summers, and his helper is Mr. Graves. This choice of names represents the life
cycle completely: life from the summer sun, and death ends up in the grave. This life
cycle becomes entwined in the beliefs of a society and the practices remain and are
taught, although the first connotations of the practices have been lost. Over time the
villagers have not any idea about exactly why they stone a fellow member of their
society, but they just know that it has to be done and that it will.
When societies form, the basis for maintaining those societies is founded. The village in
"The Lottery" is no different. Everybody knows his or her station in life, whether it be
a farmer or mailman, and everybody accepts it. The general cold-bloodedness that each
member of the community extends to everyone else is also cruelly accepted. During the
lottery, any one of the members of the community could be killed. Each and every member
knows this, and has known it. The acceptance of the lottery as a means of scapegoating
from the time they were children has nullified the general humanity of the populace.
Because every villager is aware of the possible consequences of the lottery and has
accepted it, the village itself operates on a normal day to day basis, just as any other
village or town would. The villagers meet each other with a casual coolness, and are
almost excited as to the day's event. The inhumanity in this is generated by the learned
habits of the collected society, not by any inherent human nature. 
It is interesting to note that human beings have a tendency to lean toward life instincts
rather than to death instincts. The life instincts of a population have an effect that
seems to indicate an inborn capacity for committing evil, although the instinct just
intensifies the learned evil. By wanting to remain alive, the villagers take a "to each
his own" type of stance: "…when the chips are down, everybody wants just one thing
- to save his own skin (Cervo 183)." When it becomes evident to Tessie Hutchinson that
her family has been chosen, and that she may be the selected one she states that
"…it wasn't fair. You didn't give him [Bill Hutchinson] time enough to choose.
Everybody saw that." It is clear that the life instincts for her family and herself
surfaced, even though she is quite familiar with the custom and would have agreed to it
had it not the lottery chosen her. Soon it becomes necessary that Tessie's own life
instincts take over those for her family. This "reveals the fragility of the nuclear
family" by demonstrating that even the closest of ties are not match for the superiority
of the lottery by "which the lottery effectively divides [the family] into competing
individuals whose survival needs are at odds with one another (Whittier 353)." After it
became apparent that Tessie had indeed been chosen as the scapegoat, sympathies arose
from the crowd; however, there was no question that she had to be stoned. From this
point, the life instincts of the other villagers cease to be in the forefront of their
thinking, and the desire to cleanse their sins becomes their prime obsession. This
obsession explains how the "…ritual in its origin is integral to man's concept of
his universe, that it is rooted in his need to explain, even to control the forces around
him (Nebeker 302)." By destroying what they know to be the living symbol of the evils of
what could happen, they destroy all concepts of humanity and overshadow the intimate
human bonds that creates and hold a society together.
As ages come and go, so does tradition. In essence, the lottery has become a tradition
with its origins unknown, but the unknown results of what could happen have kept it
alive. The only reason the practice has remained in use is by the desensitizing of the
value of human life. "Until enough men are touched strongly enough by the horror of their
ritualistic, irrational actions to reject the long-perverted ritual, to destroy the box
completely - or to make, if necessary, a new one reflective of their own conditions and
needs of life - man will never free himself from his primitive nature and is ultimately
doomed (Nebeker 302)." For the villagers of Jackson's "The Lottery", the practice is
almost religion. To change the practice would require the villagers to somehow step
outside of their "black box" and examine their world more closely. If just one mother and
one father didn't ingrain the importance of the sacrifice into one of their children,
perhaps this would allow that child to not learn what is expected, but to discover the
value of life and to bring it into the village. Then a paradigm can be born.
Bibliography
Cervo, Nathan. "Jackson's 'The Lottery'". The Explicator. 50 (1992): 183-185.
Coulthard, A.R.. "Jackson's 'The Lottery'". The Explicator. 48 (1990): 226-228.
Freidman, Lenemaja. "Social Evil - 'The Lottery'". Shirley Jackson. Boston: Twayne
Publishers. 1975.
Griffin, Amy. "Jackson's 'The Lottery'". The Explicator. 58 (1999): 44-45.
Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
1987.
Nebeker, Helen. "'The Lottery': Symbolic Tour de Force". Contemporary Literary Criticism.
11: 302.
Whittier, Gayle. "'The Lottery' as Misogynist Parable". 18 (1991): 353-363.