NOTES – The Lottery
SUMMARY:
Ø Typical farming community maintains a traditional ritual originally created to ensure bountiful crops
Ø Current tradition involves holding a lottery to select one individual from community to sacrifice through stoning to ensure the bountiful crops
Ø When a specific individual is selected, she says the drawing was unfair.
Ø No one from the townspeople supports her protests and the stoning goes ahead.
POINT OF VIEW:
Ø Objective – ‘dramatic’ – roving camera - none of the characters is fully developed BUT a range of attitudes is skillfully presented
o Summers – civic duty – ignorant goodwill
o Old Man Warner – bigoted reactionary – has inner contradictions (accuses others
of not coming out of caves, when he himself has not emerged from the cave)
o Mr./Mrs. Adams – liberals, nonconformists – at least question the lottery (but not
strongly or emotionally enough to sway others)
o Mrs. Hutchinson – self-centered individual, has latent cruelty, hypocrite;
representative of the community
o Mrs. Delacroix – reflects unfeeling sentiment, unquestioning conformity of
townspeople
PROTAGONIST:
Ø NOT Mrs. Hutchinson ---- IS Society as a whole
ANTAGONIST:
The villagers’ own blind acceptance of tradition
THEMES:
Ø The dangers of blind obedience to ritualistic behaviors
SUB-THEMES:
· The dark side of human nature
· The subjugation of women
· Potential for cruelty when people submit to the tyranny of the ‘status quo’
STYLISTIC ELEMENTS:
Ø Irony – main irony - discrepancy of the community --- between friendliness and goodwill
to cruelty and meaninglessness of the practice it perpetuates
Ø Detail – description of day, community, condition of crops – directly goes to establish
contradiction of need for the community tradition vs. perceived benefit
o description of women – as secondary or second-class citizens to men (review how they are described/presented… ‘wearing faded house dresses…walking shortly after their menfolk… ‘here comes your missus’, Bill’…)
Ø Symbolism – black box – sense of impending death; decaying, shabby condition (represents the faltering of the old tradition)
o Name symbolism – Mr. Graves – postmaster but makes up slips of paper; Mr. Warner – warning; Mr. Adams – Adam and Eve (original sin, fall from grace); Summers – happy, leisure time, relaxation
o Used slips of paper – let to blow away in the wind after use
o Mrs. Hutchinson – forgetting what day it was (action is symbolic)
o Town leaders – men or rather business men (meaning?)
Ø Use of scapegoat/scapegoating – significance?
MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS:
Ø Story is NOT an attack or condemnation of accepting any tradition --- CONDEMNS the
unquestioning acceptance of cruel, irrational traditions
Ø Selection appears to be related to working – reinforces work ethic of society?
o Mr. Dunbar broke his leg; Mr. Watson is dead --- families are the least productive
in community – fear they are the chosen one…
Ø Old Man Warner – has participated in lottery for his ‘77th year’ implies he feels safe from
selection from luck (77) or his commitment to work and the village work ethic
Ø School children’s apathy or disinterest – reflects their indoctrination into the lottery
tradition (society)