Dave Hutchinson's Life In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, a cruel tradition occurs in towns across the nation. Every year, the town gathers and at random chooses a head of the household and a member of that family to be stoned to death. Dave Hutchinson’s life is changed forever when his mother and father, Bill and Tessie Hutchinson, are chosen in the lottery. All the children in the town will grow up to experience different issues with their health and with different perspectives on if the lottery is right or wrong, with Dave at a more of a disadvantage as he was directly affects by the lottery.
Children use their experiences early on to shape their lives later on in life. Witnessing the annual stoning has the possibility to be damaging. In “The Lottery”, each child in the village is exposed to the

First of all, he is going to be growing up without parents. This means that he is going to be an orphan and have to move from family to family, or live without parents with his siblings. It is a difficult life of being an orphan, and it is even more difficult to accept the fact that Dave himself helped murder his parents. When people were preparing for the stoning, “Someone had given little Dave Hutchinson a few pebbles,” (258). Physical abuse, sexual abuse and bullying or all things that can be damaging on a child’s life. However, being encouraged to murder relatives, especially parents, without really knowing what is happening, is an extreme case of mental abuse. Keir MacDonald research shows that, “Adverse experiences are proven to affect behavior in adult life and increase the risk of physical and mental health problems.” When Dave grows up and someone tells him how his parents died, he will have a reaction that will cause health problems, and it something he did not even have a choice in. Unfortunately Dave Hutchinson will be negatively affected by the