“The Lottery” 605dates with Mr. Benn. When Stevens asked her about
these dates, instead of getting angry for invading her
privacy, she was relieved “as though she had been
long awaiting an opportunity to raise the very topic.”
Stevens then discontinued the informal “meetings”
they had after work. Miss Kenton, in another bid
to win this tug-of-war, announced that her suitor
had proposed to her and she intended to agree.
Stevens did not stop her. Twenty years later, when
Stevens meets her on his motor trip, she explains to
him the reason she left (but eventually returned to)
her husband thrice: “I get to thinking about a life I
might have had with you, Mr. Stevens. And I sup-
posed that’s when I get angry over some trivial little
thing [with her husband] and leave.” But she goes
on to explicate that “one can’t be forever dwelling on
what might have been” and returns to her husband
in the end. However resolved she is to bear her past
mistakes, she sometimes regrets the past so much
her restraints breakdown. For example, she writes
to Stevens: “The rest of my life stretches out like an
emptiness before me.”
The wistful and nostalgic tone of the novel
reflects the regret that is felt by the characters.
While Stevens, Stevens senior, and Miss Kenton are
regretful, they deal with the emotion differently. Ste-
vens senior died with regrets. Miss Kenton bravely
admitted that she had regretted her decision in mar-
riage but lived on with her decision, while Stevens
continued to delude himself, to live a lie.
Aaron Ho
jaCkSon, SHirLEy “The Lottery”
(1948)
“The Lottery” tells of a small, nameless town’s
annual summer ritual. On every June 27, the father
of every family draws a slip of paper from a black
box. One slip has a mark on it. When one family
is selected, every member of that family then draws
another slip of paper, one of which, again, is marked.
When it is determined who has selected the marked
paper, that individual is immediately, inexplicably,
and unemotionally stoned—presumably to death—
by the entire village, including their own family
members. The individual stoned this particular
year is Tessie Hutchinson, wife to Bill Hutchinson,
mother to Bill Jr., Nancy, and little Davy, to “whom
someone gave . . . a few pebbles.” The story con-
cludes with the haunting line: “ ‘It isn’t fair, it isn’t
right,’ Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they
were upon her.”
We identify with Tessie Hutchinson prior to her
death because she arrives late to the ritual and then
jokes with the crowd that she didn’t want to leave
dishes in the sink. The oldest man in the village,
aptly named Old Man Warner, admonishes those
who would do away with “The Lottery.” This shows
us that some of the villagers dislike the practice but
continue anyhow. Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves cer-
emoniously lead the tradition, and there are a dozen
or so other minor characters that comprise those
present during the ritual.
As one of the most famous American short
stories of the 20th century, “The Lottery” is brief,
sparsely detailed, and relies less on character devel-
opment than on its shocking finale for its emotional
power and unsettling insights into human behavior.
David Michelsonindividual and Society in “The Lottery”
A central conflict represented in “The Lottery” is
between an individual, Tessie Hutchinson, and her
society—the small, nameless village. Although the
village is made up of individuals, once the rationale
for the lottery is shared by a large number of people,
an individual like Tessie becomes helpless to protest
against a practice that the collective has deemed
“right” and “necessary.” However, Tessie is not sim-
ply a victim of collective cruelty; the story shows
quite clearly that Tessie—even as a victim—has the
same potential to do to another what is done to her.
On the one hand, Tessie is clearly an individual
who becomes the victim of an outdated social
practice. The purpose of the lottery is to select an
individual to be sacrificed, but readers are never
told why this is necessary. One presumes that this
ritual performed a function in the past—that is, that
the society benefited from an individual’s sacrifice.
Yet in the story’s modern setting of factories and
post offices, it seems the functionality has vanished
while only the selected individual’s burden remains.
The ritual’s apparent non-functionality supports
our feeling that Tessie is a victim of a practice that