Symbolism and Social Critique in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

Overview of the Story and Its Setting

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a story of a senseless, superstitious, and archaic ritual still practiced yearly in many villages, beginning at ten o'clock on the morning of June 27th. Jackson opens by describing how the people of a village gather in the town square on a clear and sunny morning, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day, flowers blossoming profusely, and the grass richly green. This first sentence paints such a quaint picture that it leads the reader to believe the tale will be filled with joy and luck. The author notes that in some towns the lottery took two days because of the large population, but this village had only about three hundred people, so the whole lottery took less than two hours — "so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner." It sounds as though this is a kind of yearly gathering in which some type of prize is awarded, for everyone gathers so hurriedly and matter-of-factly — none more so than Tessie Hutchinson.

Tessie Hutchinson: Character and Social Role

Mrs. Hutchinson, with her sweater thrown over her shoulders, hurries along the path to the square and takes a place at the back of the crowd, saying to Mrs. Delacroix that she had "Clean forgot what day it was . . . Thought my old man was out back stacking wood and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running." Both women laugh softly, as if they are waiting for the doors to open at a department-store sale. As Mrs. Hutchinson dries her hands on her apron, Mrs. Delacroix assures her she made it in time: "They're still talking away up there."

One imagines Mrs. Hutchinson as a round, plump farm woman accustomed to hard labor and hard times — one who likely removes her apron only at bedtime and for church. She probably trots wherever she goes, just as she trotted up the path to the town square, always in a hurry, never enough hours in the day. When Tessie spots her husband Bill, she makes her way through the crowd to stand beside him and their children. As people part to let her through, someone calls out, "Here comes your Missus, Hutchinson — Bill, she made it after all." When she reaches her husband, Mr. Summers says cheerfully, "Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie," to which she replies, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe."

Peter Kosenko, writing in the Spring 1985 issue of New Orleans Review, observes that "None of the men . . . thinks of addressing Tessie first, since she 'belongs' to Bill. Most women in the village take this patriarchal definition of their role for granted," yet Tessie is the "only one who rebels against male domination, although only unconsciously." Kosenko further argues that the fact Tessie finished washing the dishes before coming to the lottery reflects the villagers' unconscious belief that "their commitment to a work ethic will grant them some magical immunity from selection."

Tessie's Unconscious Acts of Rebellion

Tessie's rebellion, writes Kosenko, begins with her late arrival at the lottery — a faux pas that raises suspicions of her resistance to everything the lottery stands for. By choosing Tessie Hutchinson as the lottery's victim and scapegoat, Jackson reveals the lottery to be an ideological mechanism that serves to defuse the average villager's deep, inarticulate dissatisfaction with the social order by channeling it into anger directed at the victims of that order.

Tessie's next unconscious act of rebellion comes when the Hutchinson name is drawn and she says to her husband, "Get up there, Bill." Kosenko writes that in doing this, Tessie "inverts the power relation that holds in the village between husbands and wives . . . her remark evokes nervous laughter from the crowd, which senses the taboo that she has violated." According to Kosenko, Tessie's final faux pas is to question the lottery rules that relegate women to inferior status as the property of their husbands. When Mr. Summers asks Bill Hutchinson whether his family has any other households, Tessie yells, "There's Don and Eva . . . Make them take their chance," but Mr. Summers reminds her, "Daughters draw with their husbands' families."