In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson demonstrates through the impatient citizens at the lottery that people quickly complete a required event they participate in reluctantly to avoid thinking about the mandatory activities. At the mandatory lottery, the residents of a small village come together and randomly choose someone to be stoned to death. During the lottery selection process, one villager, Mrs. Dunbar, tells her son, “I wish they’d hurry” (4). The stressful lottery seems to be moving slowly; therefore, Mrs. Dunbar wants it to move quicker. She is waiting for the result of the lottery and wants the process to move faster, so she will not have to worry if she or a family member will be murdered. If the process moves faster, Mrs. Dunbar …show more content…
Mr. Summers informs the village that the most practical way to complete the lottery is as fast as possible, so the villagers can avoid thinking about the lottery. If the villagers are waiting to commit murder, they will have time to realize stoning an innocent person is immoral. On the other hand, if the lottery process moves rapidly, they do not have time to understand their wrongful actions. Similarly to the villagers wanting the lottery to transpire quickly, Mr. Summers wants the stoning finished as soon as possible. Terrie Hutchinson is chosen to be stoned, and Mr. Summers informs the village to start throwing stones: “All right, folks… Let’s finish quickly” (7). Mr. Summers wants the stoning to happen quickly, so the citizens do not have to think about their wrongful actions. The citizens subconsciously realize randomly murdering an innocent person is wrong, but they have to participate in the lottery. When the stoning happens swiftly, the citizens do not have enough time to process the fact that they are randomly murdering one of their own villagers. In order to protect the villagers from analyzing the horrible results of the lottery and worrying about their wrongful actions later in the day, Mr. Summers tells them to throw the stones