Foreshadowing And Symbols In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

The Lottery In the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, the husbands were the first one to draw a slip from the black box, used for the ritual, in alphabetical order. As soon as the head of the families got their slip of paper, they can open it. Unfortunately, Bill Hutchinson pulled out the slip that tells everyone his household was chosen again to join the ritual. Mr. Hutchinson’s wife accused Mr. Summers, the ritual conductor or host, for not giving his husband enough time while it was his turn to take a random slip from the box. Even though Mrs. Hutchinson argued back, she had no choice but to draw a slip out from the black box with her three kids. After each family member had a slip of paper on their hand, they opened it to revealed a blank paper. The three kids were safe and so was Mr. Hutchison except for Mrs. Hutchinson. On her slip was a black dot and everyone in the crowd knew what to do as they gathered small pebbles and rocks from the ground as they move toward Mrs. Hutchinson while she screamed about the unfairness of this lottery.

At the beginning of the story, these young boys were piling stones together at one corner of the square while they stuffed a few stones into their pockets. This foreshadows that maybe these stones were going to be used for something. The black box that was used for the lottery seemed to be an important object in the story. The box was used to pick which family is chosen for this ritual. Since black symbolizes for death and evil, that box chooses the person that will be hunted down by the whole village. While Mrs. Hutchinson drew out the slip with a black dot from the black wooden box, everyone and even her own kids reached for stones to throw at