This page is about the short story; see lottery for the gambling game.

The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in 1948 in The New Yorker.

In it, a small town gathers on a warm, early-summer morning to carry out their annual lottery. In the lottery, one person in the town is randomly selected for death by stoning. The selection takes place in this way: first each family draws slips of paper, one of which has a black circle on it. The family receiving the circle draws again, selecting one member for death. In the story, the woman who is murdered is named Tessie Hutchinson. The story eerily contrasts the modern, typical details of the villager's lives -- Mrs. Hutchinson is washing dishes before coming to the ritual, and the Lottery head is described as wearing blue jeans -- with the barbarity of the lottery ritual.

It is a social commentary on how society blindly follows tradition, even if the event is misunderstood or has no current relevance. It's also a comment on scapegoating, or a group using parts of it as ways to release their frustrations - in this case, by stoning. The Lottery is an allegory of how society and groups tend to act everyday.

It should be noted that in the context of the story, the reader does not know the fate of the Lottery "winner" until the first stone strikes her, though the tone grows darker as she gets closer to her fate.

See also

• The Lottery in Babylon, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges in which death or other personal fates are determined by lottery.

External link

• The full text of the story from AmericanLiterature.com