This essay examines Shirley Jackson's 1948 short story "The Lottery" as a multilayered work of social criticism directed at American culture. The paper traces the story's central symbols — the black box, the pile of stones, and the lottery ritual itself — to historical and political contexts including the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and post-9/11 civil liberties restrictions under the USA PATRIOT Act. Drawing on Peter Kosenko's socioeconomic reading, the essay argues that Jackson exposes two interconnected themes: the pervasiveness of senseless violence in American society and the way outmoded traditions and rituals sanction inhumane behavior. The analysis demonstrates that these themes remain relevant well beyond Jackson's era.
Speaking to The San Francisco Chronicle in 1948 regarding her controversial short story "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson stated, "Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives" (cited by Kosenko). When the story appeared in a 1948 edition of the prestigious New Yorker magazine, it caused a considerable stir. Published during the afterglow of an Allied victory in World War Two, "The Lottery" aimed understated criticism at what most Americans believed was a triumphant modern society, superior to all others that had existed before it.
In "The Lottery," a small New England town that is the epitome of American tradition and small-town life becomes a twentieth-century Roman coliseum — an arena more violent than any professional wrestling show, hockey rink, or Tarantino film. In Jackson's tale, a woman is stoned to death because she won an annual town lottery. The ritual has continued since the inception of the town centuries earlier; the lottery forms a core aspect of the citizens' identity. Old Man Warner, who by his name alone embodies tradition and all things past, exclaims that the surrounding towns that have abandoned their lotteries are all "young fools."
Thus, Jackson implies two main themes in "The Lottery": first, American culture is permeated with senseless violence and even characterized by it; and second, like the public stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson, outmoded rituals and traditions permit and condone horrific, animalistic behavior. The themes running through "The Lottery," which Jackson elucidates through symbolism, mirror modern American social and political realities.
"The Lottery" hearkens back to tragically real events in American history, most notably the Salem witch trials of seventeenth-century Massachusetts. Jackson's story is set in New England, underscoring the geographic and topical relevance of her narrative to those famous trials. Moreover, some of the core symbolism running throughout Jackson's story evokes the mystique of witchcraft, primarily the "pile of stones" that the town's children form at the beginning of the tale. Stone piles are reminiscent of Stonehenge and other ancient European megaliths. Both Stonehenge and the "pile of stones" in "The Lottery" symbolize ancient rituals that have little relevance in the modern world, and both hint at the practice of sorcery, witchcraft, and other ancient arts.
Furthermore, throwing stones is one of the most ancient forms of public execution and humiliation, referenced throughout the Christian Bible. Jackson's choice of a female victim in "The Lottery" further emphasizes the connection between the short story and the Salem witch trials, most of which prosecuted women. In both cases, the victim is innocent of any apparent crime. In both cases, the punishment and mob mentality are rooted in ancient, outworn rituals.
More relevant to the era in which Jackson wrote, "The Lottery" represents McCarthyism — the modern-day witch hunts that plagued American citizens during the Cold War. During the McCarthy trials, individuals thought to hold beliefs or values contrary to those of the American government were prosecuted as "communists" and tried under the Alien Registration Act. The House of Un-American Activities Committee in particular targeted prominent Hollywood figures, many of whom warned against the dangers of an overly paternalistic American government. In many ways, Jackson's lottery resembles McCarthyism; the author accuses the town's authority figures of behaving in a manner similar to the American government during the Cold War. Jackson wrote her story just as the Cold War was beginning, as though she had detected the fears and latent violence that have always lurked beneath the surface of American culture.
"PATRIOT Act, ritual amnesia, and lost liberty"
"Colonial violence and American founding"
"Kosenko's reading and contemporary relevance"
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