Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The short fictional story The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, was published in 1948 in the newspaper The New Yorker. The story takes place in a small village with around 300 people that rely on farming to make money. It was June 27th, on a warm and sunny day with green grass and flowers. Mr. Summers and Mr. graves were the ones to prepare and conduct the lottery. The head of every household was the one to draw a piece of paper from the black box. They all had to wait anxiously until every man had drawn. Once the last man had gone up, they unfolded their papers to reveal the “winner.” The “winner” in The Lottery was Bill Hutchinson. The Hutchinson family then must draw, and someone from the family will get the black dot and will be stoned. The winner of the family in the short story was Tessie, Bill’s wife. She pleaded and had tried to run away but most of the other villagers believed in the tradition so they showed no mercy, and stoned her. The villagers that did not believe in the tradition and thought it was wrong, only threw small stones and protested that villages nearby had stopped the tradition. Old man Warner, a believer in the tradition of the lottery had said “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” A theme throughout the story is power of tradition.

One of the differences is in the movie, the filming was blurry, and had lots of zooms. This impacted the movie by making the viewer feel like he or she was actually there. Also, in the short story, the setting was on a warm, beautiful, and happy day. On the other hand, the movie’s day was dark, and windy, with no flowers or green grass. This impacted the movie and the book by making the mood change between the two. Finally, the last major difference was, in the book, when they were opening their papers, there was chatter, but in the movie it was silent. This changed the movie by making more suspense for the