The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Society Analysis

Society can be either civilize or barbaric. “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, begins on the twenty-seventh of June. The people of the village soon start to gather into the square and the children start to collect rocks for the lottery and then Mr. Summers, the lottery programmer, starts to call out each family from alphabetical order. Each member of each family goes up to the box and picks up a piece of paper and as soon as everybody has one, they turn it over to check for the paper with the black dot. Mr. Hutchinson has the paper with the black dot. His wife objects to this and calls for a redo within her family, and when they redo it, Mrs. Hutchinson get the paper with the black dot, and the villagers start their tradition by throwing

When Mr. Hutchinson gets pick as the winner, his wife objects to this and he tells her, “Shut up, Tessie.” Shirley Jackson describes Mr. Hutchinson as barbaric due to him being cold-hearted to his wife, after all she was worried about him, showing that he does not care about her. After the second drawing within the Hutchinson family, Mrs. Hutchinson gets picked and she stands at the center of the square, Shirley Jackson describes the townspeople as, “The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.” The townspeople are barbaric because they gave Davy Hutchinson some pebbles in order to stone his mother to death, showing that they really do not care who the person getting stoned unless it is them. When Mrs. Hutchinson gets picked and everyone gangs up on her, they telling everyone “Come on, come on, everyone” in order to finish the lottery. The townspeople are barbaric because they want everyone to join in- even her family. By bringing in her family in order to stoned Mrs. Hutchinson, the villagers showed their barbaric side. Their barbaric side is that they tell everyone to hurry up and that everyone needs to join in. To conclude, Shirley Jackson uses the townspeople to show how society is