"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is about a small town of people who gathered in town square just as they do every year on June 27th. All the men and women are talking with one another while the kids begin collecting rocks into a large pile. Then, the Lottery begins which is basically a game of chance. Slips of paper are placed in a box,are mixed randomly and one of the slips has a black dot. Whoever gets the black dot will then win. Bill's family was chosen to determine who gets the black dot and Bill's wife,Tessie is chosen. All of the townspeople then stone her with the rocks that the children collected at the start. Jackson uses an objective third-person narration to create suspense and foreshadow the events leading to the ending by not …show more content…
The townspeople act indifferent to the lottery because most of them have forgotten why they are doing it except the elders. Yet there's signal phrases in the story used to identify how the lottery is a good thing for the community. As described by Mr.Warner, "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon."(628). Warner's comment foreshadows that this is some type of ritual that will produce corn. In many ancient cultures, animal or human sacrifices were made in hopes to please the gods enough for a good harvest. The people of the town continue to behave like any other day, discussing things such as the weather and how their day was to one another. Later on it was said that, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use the stones”(629). That the lottery is indeed a ritual of some sorts, but stones were also a part of it but they don't really understand the meaning of how this certain ritual is helping solve their problems. The stones were not seen as a reward to anyone because they were gathered in the beginning with children so they are common rocks found around town. These parts lead up to the finale of the town's lottery and it doesn't seem like a reward to