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The Lottery
Shirley Jackson's unnerving, macabre tale of random cruelty, The Lottery is one of the most iconic stories ever written, and a touchstone for writers such as Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
Every year the villagers gather.
They can't remember when the Lottery started. Much of the original ceremony has been forgotten or discarded; the first black box lost.
But the ritual always ends in the same way...
Shirley Jackson's chilling tales of creeping unease and casual cruelty have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the most iconic American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.
'An amazing writer' Neil Gaiman
'Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious' A. M. Homes
Extracts from letters to the New Yorker after the first appearance of 'The Lottery' in 1948:
(New York) Do such tribunal rituals still exist and if so where?
(Ohio) I think your story is based on fact. Am I right?
(Los Angeles) I have read of some queer cults in my time, but this one bothers me.
(New York) I expect a personal apology from the author.
(Massachusetts) I will never buy The New Yorker again. I resent being tricked into reading perverted stories like "The Lottery."
(Connecticut) Who is Shirley Jackson? Cannot decide whether she is a genius or a female and more subtle version of Orson Welles.
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
Every year the villagers gather.
They can't remember when the Lottery started. Much of the original ceremony has been forgotten or discarded; the first black box lost.
But the ritual always ends in the same way...
Shirley Jackson's chilling tales of creeping unease and casual cruelty have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the most iconic American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.
'An amazing writer' Neil Gaiman
'Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious' A. M. Homes
Extracts from letters to the New Yorker after the first appearance of 'The Lottery' in 1948:
(New York) Do such tribunal rituals still exist and if so where?
(Ohio) I think your story is based on fact. Am I right?
(Los Angeles) I have read of some queer cults in my time, but this one bothers me.
(New York) I expect a personal apology from the author.
(Massachusetts) I will never buy The New Yorker again. I resent being tricked into reading perverted stories like "The Lottery."
(Connecticut) Who is Shirley Jackson? Cannot decide whether she is a genius or a female and more subtle version of Orson Welles.
11 pages, Paperback
First published June 26, 1948
About the author
Shirley Jackson
344 books12.4k followersShirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
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February 25, 2018
Science Imitating Art
Jackson’s story was published in 1948. At the time, and since, it has been praised as insightful and criticised as obscure. But almost 20 years later, the French philosopher, Rene Girard, produced a theory which has a remarkable congruence with its theme and, I think, provides the best explanation of what Jackson was getting at in The Lottery.
Girard argued that our individual desires are never the product of some inner longing but always rather of the imitation of others. We want what other people want. This he called ‘mimetic desire’ and Girard went on to explore the implications of this insight for the next half century.
Mimetic desire, according to Girard, has a predictable trajectory that is familiar to advertising executives around the world. One person wants what another has, just because the other has it. This attracts the desire of others in a sort of exponential wave of wanting.
But widespread wanting of anything means, first, a shortage of that commodity, and consequently the mutual antagonism of all those who share the same desire. Girard’s contention is that this incipient hostility threatens to create a sort of Hobbesian world, a non-society, in which no cooperative or coordinated action, including effective government, can be established.
Human beings, Girard believed, deal with this situation unconsciously and instinctively by the mechanism of ‘scape-goating’, through which a group identifies one of its own members as the cause of its mimetic tension. This individual is both sacred and an object of communal hatred. The elimination of this individual is therefore not just necessary for the welfare of the community, but also forms the basis of religious practice in which the role of the scape-goat is transformed into a noble duty.
Girard goes even further in his later work to claim that the ritual establishment of the scape-goat is the most primitive form of representation, and consequently of language, that human beings have demonstrated. In a sense the essential foundation for human power in the world is religious violence which victimizes random members or groups in modern society.
Whether or not one agrees with Girard’s anthropology, and there is a substantial body of evidence to recommend it, his literary usefulness is demonstrated by the application of his theory to The Lottery. The theory explains, among other things the liturgical character of the story; its origins in a distant past; its particular relevance to a relatively isolated agricultural community; and its connection to a paternalistic hierarchy whose continued existence depends on the ritual.
As far as I am aware, Girard did not read The Lottery; but since he was in America at the time he might have done. In any case, it is certainly remarkable that an author of fiction like Jackson could have written such a tight short story which captures so much of subsequent academic work. Thus demonstrating, if demonstration were needed, the tremendous importance of fiction to cultural life.
For an introduction to Girard’s work see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Jackson’s story was published in 1948. At the time, and since, it has been praised as insightful and criticised as obscure. But almost 20 years later, the French philosopher, Rene Girard, produced a theory which has a remarkable congruence with its theme and, I think, provides the best explanation of what Jackson was getting at in The Lottery.
Girard argued that our individual desires are never the product of some inner longing but always rather of the imitation of others. We want what other people want. This he called ‘mimetic desire’ and Girard went on to explore the implications of this insight for the next half century.
Mimetic desire, according to Girard, has a predictable trajectory that is familiar to advertising executives around the world. One person wants what another has, just because the other has it. This attracts the desire of others in a sort of exponential wave of wanting.
But widespread wanting of anything means, first, a shortage of that commodity, and consequently the mutual antagonism of all those who share the same desire. Girard’s contention is that this incipient hostility threatens to create a sort of Hobbesian world, a non-society, in which no cooperative or coordinated action, including effective government, can be established.
Human beings, Girard believed, deal with this situation unconsciously and instinctively by the mechanism of ‘scape-goating’, through which a group identifies one of its own members as the cause of its mimetic tension. This individual is both sacred and an object of communal hatred. The elimination of this individual is therefore not just necessary for the welfare of the community, but also forms the basis of religious practice in which the role of the scape-goat is transformed into a noble duty.
Girard goes even further in his later work to claim that the ritual establishment of the scape-goat is the most primitive form of representation, and consequently of language, that human beings have demonstrated. In a sense the essential foundation for human power in the world is religious violence which victimizes random members or groups in modern society.
Whether or not one agrees with Girard’s anthropology, and there is a substantial body of evidence to recommend it, his literary usefulness is demonstrated by the application of his theory to The Lottery. The theory explains, among other things the liturgical character of the story; its origins in a distant past; its particular relevance to a relatively isolated agricultural community; and its connection to a paternalistic hierarchy whose continued existence depends on the ritual.
As far as I am aware, Girard did not read The Lottery; but since he was in America at the time he might have done. In any case, it is certainly remarkable that an author of fiction like Jackson could have written such a tight short story which captures so much of subsequent academic work. Thus demonstrating, if demonstration were needed, the tremendous importance of fiction to cultural life.
For an introduction to Girard’s work see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
June 3, 2021
Trust me, this is not a lottery you want to win!
September 22, 2022
My Views-
Villagers gather at the town square,
in an idyllic fictional small town,
to participate in an age-old ritual of “The Lottery”!
Children collect stones,
not to build or play,
but for a more diabolical plan! ☹
Pieces of paper are stored in a black wooden box.
The colour black, foreshadows, something ominous!
But none can guess.
Chits are pulled out, by one, by all,
but lightning falls on one of the housewives.
She pulls out a chit with a black mark,
And what follows is fiendish, alas! ☹
She begs, she pleads,
she calls it unfair,
but a ritual is a ritual,
and needs to be executed for all.
Please read for yourself to know! 😊 (no-spoilers)
##################################
This Shirley Jackson’s(SJ) story, published in 1948, is “devastatingly shockingly dramatically intricately edifying”
Lottery, is an age-old tradition, followed with a superstition of-
“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”
The fertility of corn has been linked with the lottery. The ghoulish result of the lottery, is considered to bring auspiciousness and growth! A superstition, which people have been following, without questioning, or fighting against it!
In today’s world, out of peer pressure, in any of the set-ups:-be it in school or office, house or market, humans follow each other impetuously- “the herd mentality”, without questioning the wrong or right! This has been infallibly reflected upon by SJ! We end up following traditions, protocols, without pondering, without questioning ourselves. If the rules/protocols, are valid, and good for the self/society or not?
In the plot, no one is contrite, but roguishly participates in the ordeal, blindly, recklessly! In my view, the huge group participating in the lottery, is a metaphor for democracy! SJ, has dawned upon us all, a question on conscious mindful living, and how democracy can also fail, devastatingly!
We end up reading a lot on totalitarianism, and so on and so forth. The Lottery, made me to question myself, the blindness of the herd mentality, that democracy brings along.
Democracy, in all plausibility, can render as a complete failure, when the people involved are blind, unconscious and uneducated about right and wrong. A good education and reformative ways, are the necessary pillars of a democracy, for it to function smoothly! Democracy should capacitate, it’s populace to live consciously and fearlessly. I know it may sound lame, that I am linking democracy with “The Lottery”, but I felt, that’s what SJ also tried all of us to reflect on!
This reading left me emotionally knackered and jaded, considering, the premise in which I started reading, all gaiety and hearty, but the unexpected ending, left me to dwell in Jackson’s mind for few days, to try and think what and how she thought! (Trying to keep away from spoilers, which is really tough in a short story of this capacity).
I was agog from the first page till the last. I conjectured the plot to be hackneyed, as the title suggests, but I was left gob-smacked! Why Shirley Jackson, would decoy the readers with an alluring title, into a horrendous ending? But the plot, offers a good bunch of learnings, which makes it worth the read! A well-deserved 4-stars. Docking a star, just for the rapid, sudden ending (though nothing felt contrived, but is definitely crisp and nuanced!).
I felt the story, is a “requiem of the evils of superstition and herd-mentality”!! Not one, but all are culpable, in the plot!
I wish if SJ would have worked on the short and rapid ending, and made it a bit more detailed. This would have allowed the savage-blow and the fluttering hearts to return to the wonted quietude! 😊
It would have helped the reader to easily reflect more, on the superstitions/societal failures and causes!
Seriously, I could have never dreamt about the imminent diabolical ending 😊
Special thanks, to an avid-reader friend, Rosh, for suggesting the story!!
Villagers gather at the town square,
in an idyllic fictional small town,
to participate in an age-old ritual of “The Lottery”!
Children collect stones,
not to build or play,
but for a more diabolical plan! ☹
Pieces of paper are stored in a black wooden box.
The colour black, foreshadows, something ominous!
But none can guess.
Chits are pulled out, by one, by all,
but lightning falls on one of the housewives.
She pulls out a chit with a black mark,
And what follows is fiendish, alas! ☹
She begs, she pleads,
she calls it unfair,
but a ritual is a ritual,
and needs to be executed for all.
Please read for yourself to know! 😊 (no-spoilers)
##################################
This Shirley Jackson’s(SJ) story, published in 1948, is “devastatingly shockingly dramatically intricately edifying”
Lottery, is an age-old tradition, followed with a superstition of-
“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”
The fertility of corn has been linked with the lottery. The ghoulish result of the lottery, is considered to bring auspiciousness and growth! A superstition, which people have been following, without questioning, or fighting against it!
In today’s world, out of peer pressure, in any of the set-ups:-be it in school or office, house or market, humans follow each other impetuously- “the herd mentality”, without questioning the wrong or right! This has been infallibly reflected upon by SJ! We end up following traditions, protocols, without pondering, without questioning ourselves. If the rules/protocols, are valid, and good for the self/society or not?
In the plot, no one is contrite, but roguishly participates in the ordeal, blindly, recklessly! In my view, the huge group participating in the lottery, is a metaphor for democracy! SJ, has dawned upon us all, a question on conscious mindful living, and how democracy can also fail, devastatingly!
We end up reading a lot on totalitarianism, and so on and so forth. The Lottery, made me to question myself, the blindness of the herd mentality, that democracy brings along.
Democracy, in all plausibility, can render as a complete failure, when the people involved are blind, unconscious and uneducated about right and wrong. A good education and reformative ways, are the necessary pillars of a democracy, for it to function smoothly! Democracy should capacitate, it’s populace to live consciously and fearlessly. I know it may sound lame, that I am linking democracy with “The Lottery”, but I felt, that’s what SJ also tried all of us to reflect on!
This reading left me emotionally knackered and jaded, considering, the premise in which I started reading, all gaiety and hearty, but the unexpected ending, left me to dwell in Jackson’s mind for few days, to try and think what and how she thought! (Trying to keep away from spoilers, which is really tough in a short story of this capacity).
I was agog from the first page till the last. I conjectured the plot to be hackneyed, as the title suggests, but I was left gob-smacked! Why Shirley Jackson, would decoy the readers with an alluring title, into a horrendous ending? But the plot, offers a good bunch of learnings, which makes it worth the read! A well-deserved 4-stars. Docking a star, just for the rapid, sudden ending (though nothing felt contrived, but is definitely crisp and nuanced!).
I felt the story, is a “requiem of the evils of superstition and herd-mentality”!! Not one, but all are culpable, in the plot!
I wish if SJ would have worked on the short and rapid ending, and made it a bit more detailed. This would have allowed the savage-blow and the fluttering hearts to return to the wonted quietude! 😊
It would have helped the reader to easily reflect more, on the superstitions/societal failures and causes!
Seriously, I could have never dreamt about the imminent diabolical ending 😊
Special thanks, to an avid-reader friend, Rosh, for suggesting the story!!
August 6, 2017
A short story with a nasty sting that leaves you questioning human nature. I also note now that this is my review #666 (or was before I rewrote it in 2023).
It opens idyllically:
“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the village square…”.
It’s the annual public lottery in a small farming community, but there is vague foreshadowing of some darker taboo: the boys are boisterous, the girls reserved, and the men tell jokes without laughing. Further unease comes from the setting being both familiar and non-specific: past or future, USA or elsewhere, and are religion or political regime factors?
It's a lottery no one wants to win. What made this especially unsettling is that there is no reason for the lottery beyond that of tradition, and a vague link to hopes of a good harvest.
“There's always been a lottery.”
“Much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded.”
The participants don’t know much about the origins, nor seem to care. It’s universally known, but reluctantly accepted: they’re inured to it. What little challenge there is, is quickly quashed. The power of crowds, consensus, community, or mob?
Image: A hand, brandishing a stone (Source)
What would you do?
We like to think we’re good people, who would only do cruel things in extremis, when there is no alternative. Jackson’s story suggests the threshold may be much lower if the right/wrong environment is set up. This was published shortly after WW2. Perhaps she was wondering how previously ordinary people came to commit atrocities.
Quotes
• “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago… There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it.”
• “‘They do say,’ Mr Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, ‘that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery.’
Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools,’ he said. ‘Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while.’”
• “All of us took the same chance.” [But random ≠ fair]
See also
• Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas, which I reviewed HERE, also starts idyllically, before revealing something dark. However, their tradition is explicitly faith-based, not mindless application of tradition.
• Kafka's short story, In the Penal Colony, which I reviewed HERE, is told by outsider, observing a strange and disturbing local custom. There is at least a reason, albeit a horribly twisted one.
• I read Ralph Ellison’s A Party Down at the Square just last week, and reviewed it HERE. That also has a murderous mob in a town square, but is otherwise very different. That is horrifically targeted (race) whereas this is horrific for its randomness. Ellison was good friends of Jackson and her husband and was godfather to their youngest child. See Harvard Review, HERE.
• Susanne Collins’ The Hunger Games has a deadly lottery. I’ve read only the first book and not seen the films, but my 2011 review, HERE, remains the one with the most comments and most vigorous debate.
• The box, that probably has no original components, is like Stan Holloway’s “real old original axe” in the poem, Beefeater, HERE.
• Rather different, but a scene from Life of Brian, HERE.
• Jackson penned an essay about how she wrote the story (all at once, with minimal planning and editing, apparently), submitted it to the New Yorker (the only change they wanted was for the lottery date to match publication date), and how she was inundated with letters, mostly very critical, and often abusive. See HERE.
Short story club
I reread this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
It opens idyllically:
“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the village square…”.
It’s the annual public lottery in a small farming community, but there is vague foreshadowing of some darker taboo: the boys are boisterous, the girls reserved, and the men tell jokes without laughing. Further unease comes from the setting being both familiar and non-specific: past or future, USA or elsewhere, and are religion or political regime factors?
It's a lottery no one wants to win. What made this especially unsettling is that there is no reason for the lottery beyond that of tradition, and a vague link to hopes of a good harvest.
“There's always been a lottery.”
“Much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded.”
The participants don’t know much about the origins, nor seem to care. It’s universally known, but reluctantly accepted: they’re inured to it. What little challenge there is, is quickly quashed. The power of crowds, consensus, community, or mob?
Image: A hand, brandishing a stone (Source)
What would you do?
We like to think we’re good people, who would only do cruel things in extremis, when there is no alternative. Jackson’s story suggests the threshold may be much lower if the right/wrong environment is set up. This was published shortly after WW2. Perhaps she was wondering how previously ordinary people came to commit atrocities.
Quotes
• “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago… There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it.”
• “‘They do say,’ Mr Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, ‘that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery.’
Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools,’ he said. ‘Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while.’”
• “All of us took the same chance.” [But random ≠ fair]
See also
• Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas, which I reviewed HERE, also starts idyllically, before revealing something dark. However, their tradition is explicitly faith-based, not mindless application of tradition.
• Kafka's short story, In the Penal Colony, which I reviewed HERE, is told by outsider, observing a strange and disturbing local custom. There is at least a reason, albeit a horribly twisted one.
• I read Ralph Ellison’s A Party Down at the Square just last week, and reviewed it HERE. That also has a murderous mob in a town square, but is otherwise very different. That is horrifically targeted (race) whereas this is horrific for its randomness. Ellison was good friends of Jackson and her husband and was godfather to their youngest child. See Harvard Review, HERE.
• Susanne Collins’ The Hunger Games has a deadly lottery. I’ve read only the first book and not seen the films, but my 2011 review, HERE, remains the one with the most comments and most vigorous debate.
• The box, that probably has no original components, is like Stan Holloway’s “real old original axe” in the poem, Beefeater, HERE.
• Rather different, but a scene from Life of Brian, HERE.
• Jackson penned an essay about how she wrote the story (all at once, with minimal planning and editing, apparently), submitted it to the New Yorker (the only change they wanted was for the lottery date to match publication date), and how she was inundated with letters, mostly very critical, and often abusive. See HERE.
Short story club
I reread this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
May 8, 2023
What a creepy short story. It is my first encounter with the author although I've had We Have Always Lived in the Castle on my TBR for ages (2014). Hmm, I do not want to give spoilers so I will only say that the lottery, which takes place in a Small American town, is not your regular one and I am not sure anyone would like to win it.
Is it beneath the surface a story about free will, herd effect, traditions that are kept without being questioned? Yes, I believe so.
Is it beneath the surface a story about free will, herd effect, traditions that are kept without being questioned? Yes, I believe so.
August 22, 2023
Well, let your ears hang low, hear the sighin' of the crows, this terrible secret we've been whisperin' / If you gotta go, you've gotta go alone, tremblin' as the arrow stands the bow (Angel Ballad – Hurray for the Riff Raff).
This is one of those works of literature where the story around its controversial nature has eclipsed the contents of what’s actually in it, and that’s a shame because the stark visceral outrage that The Lottery had ignited in its wake has unfortunately allowed people an excuse to completely write off anything that it’s trying to say. "Oh, this book is just excessive violence and awfulness and I can't read that kind of stuff because it makes me uncomfy!" I'm just saying, not everything can be a comfort read or a cozy game or a guaranteed happy ending, in order for art to actually be art, then you just have to accept that some of it exists for the sole purpose of eliciting frustration. And hey, that's a good thing, actually. That being said, this book is effective enough in its mission to anger that I'm sure if it had come out today it'd get much the same reaction, what with the rise of puritan ideals cropping up once again and being cleverly cloaked beneath woke language. "I just think it's a little sus for the author to be portraying that awful thing. What if kids get their hands on such a problematic book!" and all that. Otherwise, this book is damn good at what it does, I mean, there's only one sentence of on-page violence that's not even particularly detailed, and yet I keep thinking back to it and feeling sick to my stomach.
Yeah, I’m aware that it’s pretentious to be all like, “you’re supposed to be angry at this book, that’s the point!” but there’s really no way around it; you’re supposed to get mad at this short story, that’s the point! In order for this book to mean something, then we need to feel the anger ourselves. Outrage is important because then we can actually do something about it, you know? And I get it, because like most, I read this in school (before all those terrible book bans, I reckon), and I figured that my initial reaction of clenched fist helplessness and white-knuckled anger was owed to being too young to be able to properly process what I had just read and what it’s trying to say, but now that I’ve finished it again, all I can say is that… nope, that specific red hot anger is as fresh now as it had always been! Which is a good thing, because this book is all about desensitization to horrific violence and a having a bird’s eye view of the juxtaposition in how easily archaic cultural norms that “have always been the way we've done things” can slip into a supposed enlightened society. Besides, if my reaction to The Lottery had dulled in the intervening years, then that would say more about me than the work itself.
Wait, I haven’t even talked about what it's about yet, but considering it’s one of the most critically acclaimed short stories from the last century, I feel like The Lottery needs no introduction. Nonetheless, we open on a small town like all others having its annual Lottery where every family picks out of a box, and whichever person gets the slip of paper with a black mark on it is the chosen one. Now, winning the lotto sounds like a pretty sweet deal in many such cases, but here, whoever gets Bingo just gets stoned to death. Pass! So why does this happen, and how could these barbarians do such a thing!? Well, they say it's in order to have a good harvest or something, but the real reason is probably because it’s the way it's always been done. Tradition and blah blah blah. The Lottery is very similar to The Crucible in the sense that both of their emphasis is on exploring witch hunts (with the latter literally being a fictionalized retelling of the Salem Witch Trials) and the dangers of rage-induced group thinking, but I've always found that The Crucible leaned a bit too heavily on the outdated idea of “the female temptress.”
“Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery.”
Who's at fault? The girl telling lies or the group of hundreds of adults listening to those lies? Whereas The Lottery gets right to the crux of the issue by portraying a systemic problem in the only way it can properly be portrayed; as an all-encompassing, invisible force that informs every decision made throughout the narrative and yet exists outside of the reach of the characters. Because that’s just the thing, by giving the conflict a face like with Abigail Williams, it inadvertently gives the audience “an out” in the sense that an easy analysis of the text would have us simply pointing to one character and being like, “well if so-and-so didn’t do any of the things that they did, then everything would have been okay in the end.” It makes it simple to write the text off as fantasy where we don't have to examine the way it relates to our own society. Sure, even though The Crucible depicts a harrowing ordeal that can in no way be interpreted as cheery, there’s still a level of comfort in the fact that there’s a clear moral boundary drawn and that we can still place the blame on a few “bad apples.” And my thinking in why this short story received such an intense backlash is because of the purposeful helplessness The Lottery makes us feel.
There’s no catharsis, no comfort, no resolution, just a haunting tale about something that’s deeply fucked up. Still, that’s not to say all of this is without reason, that what we're witnessing is just a horrible “what if" story conjured up out of an overactive imaginative mind, but rather The Lottery stands on its own as a dark reflection of what could happen in the future and what has already happened in past. This isn’t exaggeration for the sake of it, and everything presented here is important in order to contextualize the narrative’s strong condemnation on complacency and society’s strong adherence to mob mentality. The Lottery was written with a specific anger that reverberates all throughout the narrative, and it's so potent that it got to the point where the horrific content elicited such a palpable outrage from the audience that they redirected their anger towards the author. At the unfairness, the helplessness, the mundanity of evil, call it whatever you want, but in order for the narrative to properly get its point across, then we have to understand where the author is coming from, and this is achieved by putting us in the front row seat to abhorrent acts of violence.
The horror is how it's all just an “everyday kind of thing” to these people. The thing is, empathy isn’t some kind of inborn ideal that we all inherently have inside of us, but it’s something to work towards, and if everybody is doing terrible things, then who’s to say what is and what isn’t terrible? The Lottery is a cautionary tale like all others, but it doesn't allow the reader to distance themselves from its story in the sense that it posits that anybody could easily be in such a situation had their circumstances been different. It's easy to sit back and say, “look at these backward hicks, I would never do something so dumb or be so stupid as to think murder relates to a bountiful harvest,” but because the town featured here is as contemporary and normal as can be (you know, outside of the whole “stoning people to death” thing), we’re left with no excuse left to fall back on except for just shaking our fist at the injustice of it all. And that’s the point, by pretending something like this could never happen in your lifetime or to you, you’re only underlining the very same complacency and desensitization that could lead to this very scenario in the first place. The Lottery demands us to look inward rather than simply passing judgement, and you know what? That makes people uncomfortable, because as we all know… people in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones.
Well, my cool drink of water, it's been turned to gasoline / And my man, he don't love me, he's the lowest man I've seen.
This is one of those works of literature where the story around its controversial nature has eclipsed the contents of what’s actually in it, and that’s a shame because the stark visceral outrage that The Lottery had ignited in its wake has unfortunately allowed people an excuse to completely write off anything that it’s trying to say. "Oh, this book is just excessive violence and awfulness and I can't read that kind of stuff because it makes me uncomfy!" I'm just saying, not everything can be a comfort read or a cozy game or a guaranteed happy ending, in order for art to actually be art, then you just have to accept that some of it exists for the sole purpose of eliciting frustration. And hey, that's a good thing, actually. That being said, this book is effective enough in its mission to anger that I'm sure if it had come out today it'd get much the same reaction, what with the rise of puritan ideals cropping up once again and being cleverly cloaked beneath woke language. "I just think it's a little sus for the author to be portraying that awful thing. What if kids get their hands on such a problematic book!" and all that. Otherwise, this book is damn good at what it does, I mean, there's only one sentence of on-page violence that's not even particularly detailed, and yet I keep thinking back to it and feeling sick to my stomach.
Yeah, I’m aware that it’s pretentious to be all like, “you’re supposed to be angry at this book, that’s the point!” but there’s really no way around it; you’re supposed to get mad at this short story, that’s the point! In order for this book to mean something, then we need to feel the anger ourselves. Outrage is important because then we can actually do something about it, you know? And I get it, because like most, I read this in school (before all those terrible book bans, I reckon), and I figured that my initial reaction of clenched fist helplessness and white-knuckled anger was owed to being too young to be able to properly process what I had just read and what it’s trying to say, but now that I’ve finished it again, all I can say is that… nope, that specific red hot anger is as fresh now as it had always been! Which is a good thing, because this book is all about desensitization to horrific violence and a having a bird’s eye view of the juxtaposition in how easily archaic cultural norms that “have always been the way we've done things” can slip into a supposed enlightened society. Besides, if my reaction to The Lottery had dulled in the intervening years, then that would say more about me than the work itself.
Wait, I haven’t even talked about what it's about yet, but considering it’s one of the most critically acclaimed short stories from the last century, I feel like The Lottery needs no introduction. Nonetheless, we open on a small town like all others having its annual Lottery where every family picks out of a box, and whichever person gets the slip of paper with a black mark on it is the chosen one. Now, winning the lotto sounds like a pretty sweet deal in many such cases, but here, whoever gets Bingo just gets stoned to death. Pass! So why does this happen, and how could these barbarians do such a thing!? Well, they say it's in order to have a good harvest or something, but the real reason is probably because it’s the way it's always been done. Tradition and blah blah blah. The Lottery is very similar to The Crucible in the sense that both of their emphasis is on exploring witch hunts (with the latter literally being a fictionalized retelling of the Salem Witch Trials) and the dangers of rage-induced group thinking, but I've always found that The Crucible leaned a bit too heavily on the outdated idea of “the female temptress.”
“Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery.”
Who's at fault? The girl telling lies or the group of hundreds of adults listening to those lies? Whereas The Lottery gets right to the crux of the issue by portraying a systemic problem in the only way it can properly be portrayed; as an all-encompassing, invisible force that informs every decision made throughout the narrative and yet exists outside of the reach of the characters. Because that’s just the thing, by giving the conflict a face like with Abigail Williams, it inadvertently gives the audience “an out” in the sense that an easy analysis of the text would have us simply pointing to one character and being like, “well if so-and-so didn’t do any of the things that they did, then everything would have been okay in the end.” It makes it simple to write the text off as fantasy where we don't have to examine the way it relates to our own society. Sure, even though The Crucible depicts a harrowing ordeal that can in no way be interpreted as cheery, there’s still a level of comfort in the fact that there’s a clear moral boundary drawn and that we can still place the blame on a few “bad apples.” And my thinking in why this short story received such an intense backlash is because of the purposeful helplessness The Lottery makes us feel.
There’s no catharsis, no comfort, no resolution, just a haunting tale about something that’s deeply fucked up. Still, that’s not to say all of this is without reason, that what we're witnessing is just a horrible “what if" story conjured up out of an overactive imaginative mind, but rather The Lottery stands on its own as a dark reflection of what could happen in the future and what has already happened in past. This isn’t exaggeration for the sake of it, and everything presented here is important in order to contextualize the narrative’s strong condemnation on complacency and society’s strong adherence to mob mentality. The Lottery was written with a specific anger that reverberates all throughout the narrative, and it's so potent that it got to the point where the horrific content elicited such a palpable outrage from the audience that they redirected their anger towards the author. At the unfairness, the helplessness, the mundanity of evil, call it whatever you want, but in order for the narrative to properly get its point across, then we have to understand where the author is coming from, and this is achieved by putting us in the front row seat to abhorrent acts of violence.
The horror is how it's all just an “everyday kind of thing” to these people. The thing is, empathy isn’t some kind of inborn ideal that we all inherently have inside of us, but it’s something to work towards, and if everybody is doing terrible things, then who’s to say what is and what isn’t terrible? The Lottery is a cautionary tale like all others, but it doesn't allow the reader to distance themselves from its story in the sense that it posits that anybody could easily be in such a situation had their circumstances been different. It's easy to sit back and say, “look at these backward hicks, I would never do something so dumb or be so stupid as to think murder relates to a bountiful harvest,” but because the town featured here is as contemporary and normal as can be (you know, outside of the whole “stoning people to death” thing), we’re left with no excuse left to fall back on except for just shaking our fist at the injustice of it all. And that’s the point, by pretending something like this could never happen in your lifetime or to you, you’re only underlining the very same complacency and desensitization that could lead to this very scenario in the first place. The Lottery demands us to look inward rather than simply passing judgement, and you know what? That makes people uncomfortable, because as we all know… people in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones.
Well, my cool drink of water, it's been turned to gasoline / And my man, he don't love me, he's the lowest man I've seen.
August 31, 2017
This short story is my second classic short story this year and was first published in 1948, yet the story it told is timeless. It is also horrific.
The story begins in a happy, cheerful day late in June (the 27th) which is traditionally the day for the Lottery. This tradition has been going on annually for many years – even the oldest citizen in the town recalls that it had been occurring since before he could remember.
Although some people are talking about other nearby towns that no longer have the Lottery, the majority in this village seem to be traditionalists who feel that all kinds of bad things – including crop failures – would occur if they no longer held it.
This was all very interesting and then one woman starts to speak out strongly against the process when her husband holds the winning ticket. From there, each family member draws a new ticket and only one of them has a mark on it.
From bright to dark to darker and darkest.
For me, this story stands out as a caution; of what can happen when people blindly follow along with an idea or concept because it has always been done that way. It may be called duty or responsibility but it can also be called cowardice and going with the flow because it is the path of least resistance. It can also be called ignorance because no-one is giving thought to consequences, nor how they would feel if they were the ultimate “winner”.
This is not an enjoyable read, but for sheer power in the writing and the many thoughts and feelings it evokes, it definitely deserves 5 Stars.
The story begins in a happy, cheerful day late in June (the 27th) which is traditionally the day for the Lottery. This tradition has been going on annually for many years – even the oldest citizen in the town recalls that it had been occurring since before he could remember.
Although some people are talking about other nearby towns that no longer have the Lottery, the majority in this village seem to be traditionalists who feel that all kinds of bad things – including crop failures – would occur if they no longer held it.
This was all very interesting and then one woman starts to speak out strongly against the process when her husband holds the winning ticket. From there, each family member draws a new ticket and only one of them has a mark on it.
From bright to dark to darker and darkest.
For me, this story stands out as a caution; of what can happen when people blindly follow along with an idea or concept because it has always been done that way. It may be called duty or responsibility but it can also be called cowardice and going with the flow because it is the path of least resistance. It can also be called ignorance because no-one is giving thought to consequences, nor how they would feel if they were the ultimate “winner”.
This is not an enjoyable read, but for sheer power in the writing and the many thoughts and feelings it evokes, it definitely deserves 5 Stars.
October 25, 2021
The DARK AND FORGOTTEN side of the First Day of a new Season!
An eerily quiet, but intensely creepy story - filled with primeval hints of a dark daylight ritual in the blazing June sun - which can only have its genesis in half-glimpsed murderous terrors we have all forgotten.
Towards the end of June each year, a primitive tom-tom seems to beat in our collective unconscious "like a human taxi, throbbing." It is the Summer Solstice. An awful time for sensitive hypochondriacs like me, who strive to keep ancient memories at bay.
Yet, the taxi is waiting. To take us to parts unknown!
So, in a village square in the American Midwest, a whole village's townspeople have left their fields, schools and kitchen for the annual main summer's event...
The Lottery.
The hamlet is all there gathered together, politely jocular yet subdued.
The townsfolk chat amiably, yet there is fear in their voices and glances.
The allotted time approaches, as the minute hands of the clock inch forward.
What can we expect? Something devilishly weird, maybe?
It sure seems Ms. Jackson has something up her sleeve!
Well, to address those suspicions let's check out our references in a look back at the traditional conducting of ancient midsummer celebrations:
This first one's from a book on modern witchcraft called Wicca, by Scott Cunningham: "Midsummer, the Summer Solstice, also known as Litha, arrives when the power of Nature achieves its highest point."
Shades of the Rite of Spring, maybe? And after this date, the world starts to descend more and more into the eventual Dark of Winter. A time of light and fertility going into a time of darkness and death.
And you'll note The Lottery is drawn here on June 27th.
During the Descent into Death.
OK - I think I've said enough to get your imagination going!
It's a slim story. It's cheap (or free if you get the PDF on the web). And it's a quick 'n spooky read.
Need I say more?
Read it!
Just don't read it under a Full Moon.
An eerily quiet, but intensely creepy story - filled with primeval hints of a dark daylight ritual in the blazing June sun - which can only have its genesis in half-glimpsed murderous terrors we have all forgotten.
Towards the end of June each year, a primitive tom-tom seems to beat in our collective unconscious "like a human taxi, throbbing." It is the Summer Solstice. An awful time for sensitive hypochondriacs like me, who strive to keep ancient memories at bay.
Yet, the taxi is waiting. To take us to parts unknown!
So, in a village square in the American Midwest, a whole village's townspeople have left their fields, schools and kitchen for the annual main summer's event...
The Lottery.
The hamlet is all there gathered together, politely jocular yet subdued.
The townsfolk chat amiably, yet there is fear in their voices and glances.
The allotted time approaches, as the minute hands of the clock inch forward.
What can we expect? Something devilishly weird, maybe?
It sure seems Ms. Jackson has something up her sleeve!
Well, to address those suspicions let's check out our references in a look back at the traditional conducting of ancient midsummer celebrations:
This first one's from a book on modern witchcraft called Wicca, by Scott Cunningham: "Midsummer, the Summer Solstice, also known as Litha, arrives when the power of Nature achieves its highest point."
Shades of the Rite of Spring, maybe? And after this date, the world starts to descend more and more into the eventual Dark of Winter. A time of light and fertility going into a time of darkness and death.
And you'll note The Lottery is drawn here on June 27th.
During the Descent into Death.
OK - I think I've said enough to get your imagination going!
It's a slim story. It's cheap (or free if you get the PDF on the web). And it's a quick 'n spooky read.
Need I say more?
Read it!
Just don't read it under a Full Moon.
June 1, 2021
I have always wanted to read this classic short story by the great Shirley Jackson. It was originally written in 1948 and contains some disturbing subject matter although subtly done.
I do get, "The Hunger Games" and "The Purge" vibes from it. There's a lot packed into this short story.
You can read it for free at this link and as an added bonus there's an audio to go with it! I thoroughly enjoyed the buildup and anticipation.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...
I do get, "The Hunger Games" and "The Purge" vibes from it. There's a lot packed into this short story.
You can read it for free at this link and as an added bonus there's an audio to go with it! I thoroughly enjoyed the buildup and anticipation.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...
August 6, 2017
This seemingly innocuous short story wafted into my consciousness with a halcyon, pastoral scene: an English village on a summer's day, suffused with the scent of blossoming flowers and fresh-cut grass. I could almost taste the cucumber sandwiches and the jam scones.
But there is a sub-level to the seemingly twee storyline. An allegory stealthily unfolds that immediately put me in mind of The Lord of the Flies.
Shirley Jackson's fictitious village, like the island in William Golding's book, seems to serve as a microcosm of life.
Her prose is crisp; the piece is very well written and .
But there is a sub-level to the seemingly twee storyline. An allegory stealthily unfolds that immediately put me in mind of The Lord of the Flies.
Shirley Jackson's fictitious village, like the island in William Golding's book, seems to serve as a microcosm of life.
Her prose is crisp; the piece is very well written and .
March 12, 2019
El cuento es una auténtica maravilla, pero eso ya lo saben todos los que lo han leído y únicamente cabe invitar a los demás a que pasen y lean. Pero no es esto lo que venía a decir aquí.
El relato lo leí en la edición de Cuentos escogidos que publicó la editorial minúscula. En este mismo volumen se recoge una conferencia de la autora acerca de la repercusión que tuvo la publicación del cuento en The New Yorker. Una conferencia tan perturbadora como los relatos, en la que, al mismo tiempo que se nos recuerda aquello de lo que tanto nos avisó Carlo M. Cipolla sobre lo mucho que subestimamos la cantidad de estúpidos que hay en toda época y lugar, también nos señala los niveles de crueldad latente que padece toda sociedad. El cuento parece así extenderse más allá de sus páginas cediendo al mundo exterior la escritura de los párrafos finales y dejándonos así un epílogo más atroz si cabe que el desenlace del propio relato. Y es que no hay nada más aterrador que saber que estamos rodeados de estúpidos crueles.
El relato lo leí en la edición de Cuentos escogidos que publicó la editorial minúscula. En este mismo volumen se recoge una conferencia de la autora acerca de la repercusión que tuvo la publicación del cuento en The New Yorker. Una conferencia tan perturbadora como los relatos, en la que, al mismo tiempo que se nos recuerda aquello de lo que tanto nos avisó Carlo M. Cipolla sobre lo mucho que subestimamos la cantidad de estúpidos que hay en toda época y lugar, también nos señala los niveles de crueldad latente que padece toda sociedad. El cuento parece así extenderse más allá de sus páginas cediendo al mundo exterior la escritura de los párrafos finales y dejándonos así un epílogo más atroz si cabe que el desenlace del propio relato. Y es que no hay nada más aterrador que saber que estamos rodeados de estúpidos crueles.
March 31, 2024
traumatized
January 8, 2012
A classic of stoic, gothic horror yet with a twist that leaves the reader thinking.
Like any great short story, this demonstrates the power of that medium by brutal efficiency. Subtle, but the Lottery also reveals Jackson's talent for characterization.
A chilling allegory: there is value in tradition but beware blind faith.
Like any great short story, this demonstrates the power of that medium by brutal efficiency. Subtle, but the Lottery also reveals Jackson's talent for characterization.
A chilling allegory: there is value in tradition but beware blind faith.
March 12, 2020
What can I possibly even say about this story?
I went on a Twitter deep dive because I am in a reading slump. I decided to Twitter search the reactions to one of the New Yorker's most famous short stories, Cat Person. In so doing I found the story that wagged tongues to that extent before.
The reason for that was because, back in 1948, (and I guess the years bracketing that) The New Yorker published stories without showing whether they were fact or fiction. And my, isn't that an effective way to rouse the indignation of the middle class.
Before Cat Person, this was the story that created the most hubbub and according to thoughtco.com, It has been adapted for radio, theater, television, and even ballet. The Simpsons television show included a reference to the story in its "Dog of Death" episode (season three).
The Lottery is a story set in a small town in America. If that isn't enough to set your heart to dread... have you never seen any Hollywood horror movie? Everything happens in those small towns.
Jackson herself said, "[I wrote this] to shock the story's readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives."
Well then Ms Jackson, mission accomplished.
You can read it here.
PPS// The day this story is set, June 27, is my born day. I'm rightfully spooked af.
I went on a Twitter deep dive because I am in a reading slump. I decided to Twitter search the reactions to one of the New Yorker's most famous short stories, Cat Person. In so doing I found the story that wagged tongues to that extent before.
The reason for that was because, back in 1948, (and I guess the years bracketing that) The New Yorker published stories without showing whether they were fact or fiction. And my, isn't that an effective way to rouse the indignation of the middle class.
Before Cat Person, this was the story that created the most hubbub and according to thoughtco.com, It has been adapted for radio, theater, television, and even ballet. The Simpsons television show included a reference to the story in its "Dog of Death" episode (season three).
The Lottery is a story set in a small town in America. If that isn't enough to set your heart to dread... have you never seen any Hollywood horror movie? Everything happens in those small towns.
Jackson herself said, "[I wrote this] to shock the story's readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives."
Well then Ms Jackson, mission accomplished.
You can read it here.
PPS// The day this story is set, June 27, is my born day. I'm rightfully spooked af.
May 5, 2021
A short yet powerful exploration of human nature and the dangers of clinging to traditions without critical thought or compassion. Absolutely chilling.
*updated my rating from 4 to 5 stars because this story has stayed with me for years! I think about it all the time.
*updated my rating from 4 to 5 stars because this story has stayed with me for years! I think about it all the time.
March 30, 2021
I’ve got a thing for Shirley Jackson, it’s all a bit new, a bit exciting, some may say infatuated BUT after reading and really enjoying ‘Life Among the Savages’ and now being enthralled by her short story The Lottery I am really liking this author (yes, new to me) in a big way.
This short story is a mysterious piece which culminates in an ending which was totally unexpected.
The residents of a small country town take part in an annual “Lottery”. This involves a representative from each family drawing a paper from a box, the ‘winner’ is the one who draws one with a black dot. The members of the ‘winning’ family then re-draw with one of them becoming the ultimate winner by drawing the piece with the black dot.
The writing is kind of light and breezy, almost surreal. A bunch of rural punters exchanging banter, kids playing and everyone being as they congregate in the square for the drawing of the “Lottery”.
But there is a very dark undertone throughout, for me this manifested in a feeling of unease, but I didn’t really know why, the writing is such that Jackson puts us somewhere we don’t expect, nor want to go. But I was there and suddenly, I was smacked in the mush – and left sitting on my butt, stunned.
There’s a real sense of quiet terror here, with a bunch of people, following an age-old tradition no matter what the cost. The theme of conforming, and following the mob is also apparent here – I am sure Jackson has countless other themes running through this nasty little piece – I am very much looking forward to learning more about this piece.
I will have to leave it at that. I loved this story, it’s such a powerful piece.
It can be found here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19... in the New Yorker (audio too).
5 Stars5>
This short story is a mysterious piece which culminates in an ending which was totally unexpected.
The residents of a small country town take part in an annual “Lottery”. This involves a representative from each family drawing a paper from a box, the ‘winner’ is the one who draws one with a black dot. The members of the ‘winning’ family then re-draw with one of them becoming the ultimate winner by drawing the piece with the black dot.
The writing is kind of light and breezy, almost surreal. A bunch of rural punters exchanging banter, kids playing and everyone being as they congregate in the square for the drawing of the “Lottery”.
But there is a very dark undertone throughout, for me this manifested in a feeling of unease, but I didn’t really know why, the writing is such that Jackson puts us somewhere we don’t expect, nor want to go. But I was there and suddenly, I was smacked in the mush – and left sitting on my butt, stunned.
There’s a real sense of quiet terror here, with a bunch of people, following an age-old tradition no matter what the cost. The theme of conforming, and following the mob is also apparent here – I am sure Jackson has countless other themes running through this nasty little piece – I am very much looking forward to learning more about this piece.
I will have to leave it at that. I loved this story, it’s such a powerful piece.
It can be found here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19... in the New Yorker (audio too).
5 Stars5>
May 21, 2012
المراجعة بها حرق للأحداث
-------------
يبدو مشهدا عاديا للغاية
فأهل قرية صغيرة قد التفوا في يوم اليانصيب السنوي الذي يبدو شيئا معتادا وجالبا لكثير من الفرحة والتوقعات
ولكن الأمر ليس كما يبدو
ليس كما يبدو على الاطلاق
القرية التي تبدو مسالمة وهادئة بأطفالها ونسائها ورجالها
هي في حقيقتها قرية مسعورة
دموية
فهذا الاحتفال السنوي وروتين سحب الأوراق
ليس للسحب على جائزة
إنه وكما نكتشف مع السطور الأخيرة لتقديم أضحية من نوع ما
فهو ليس بطقس ديني
بل الأمر لا يعرف له سببا سوى هذا التعطش الواضح للدماء
وهو يبدو تقليدا راسخا لدى تلك الأسرة القروية الصغيرة
في الحقيقة الطريقة التي سحبتني بها شيرلي جاكسون إلى قصتها ستظل للأبد في ذاكرتي
فبينما أنا أتابع قصة عادية أو تبدو كذلك
أجدني أصفع حرفيا بالنهاية المفاجئة البشعة
وأظل فاغرة فاهي مرددة مستحيل لفترة ليست بالقليلة
لقد كتبت قصة خلدت في تاريخ الأدب كواحدة من أغرب وأعجب القصص وأكثرها حنكة كذلك
أرشحها للجميع
November 13, 2017
"It isn't fair"
Brilliant. While reading this I wondered if this little short piece of works was the inspiration for the Hunger Games and I see that I am not alone in this thinking as other reviewers have said the same thing as well.
For such a short story she sure packed in the suspense and feeling of dread. The anxiety of having to draw and be the one with the black dot on your paper.
Brilliant. While reading this I wondered if this little short piece of works was the inspiration for the Hunger Games and I see that I am not alone in this thinking as other reviewers have said the same thing as well.
For such a short story she sure packed in the suspense and feeling of dread. The anxiety of having to draw and be the one with the black dot on your paper.
May 4, 2026
Chilling and so well written
June 16, 2023
Happy 75th birthday to this story. Still packing as strong a punch as it did back in '48.
September 29, 2024
Everyone should read this short story once in a lifetime. I read it in school and just finished my second reading. Of course, it had to have been better read the first time and as a teenager, but it certainly shows the dark side of Shirley Jackson. It was published in a magazine and earned her hate mail for the rest of her life. I’m about to put a sunnier book of hers in my queue and thought this would give some balance. Yes, she also wrote cute stories for magazines about her family living in North Bennington, VT.
April 10, 2021
Me sigue fascinando tanto como la primera vez. Incluso, me ha encantado muchísimo más que antes.
Un cuento breve que deja sorprendido con el nivel de turbiedad que tiene. Es simplemente siniestro y escalofriante.
Lo grandioso es que desde el inicio están las pistas (arma Chéjov) sin que te lo esperes. Y con una relectura logra uno dar y conectar los detalles, simplemente impresionante.
Lo amé y espero encontrar una lectura así de sorprendente en alguna novela de Shirley Jackson. De verdad lo necesito.
Un cuento breve que deja sorprendido con el nivel de turbiedad que tiene. Es simplemente siniestro y escalofriante.
Lo grandioso es que desde el inicio están las pistas (arma Chéjov) sin que te lo esperes. Y con una relectura logra uno dar y conectar los detalles, simplemente impresionante.
Lo amé y espero encontrar una lectura así de sorprendente en alguna novela de Shirley Jackson. De verdad lo necesito.
October 21, 2020
I'm shocked.
That was very disturbing and dark in the end, didn't notice it was coming. For me, this story showed people blindly follow along with an old idea or harmful tradition because it always has been done that way, so they have the right to think to continue doing this with passion. I think it was smart and very sarcastic that Jackson chose a woman as the winner at the end who spoke out strongly in defense of her husband.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle ما همیشه قلعه نشینان ⭐10
The Witch جادوگر ⭐ 9
Charles چارلز ⭐8.5
The Tooth دندان ⭐8.5
The Haunting of Hill House تسخیر عمارت هیل ⭐8
Jack the Ripper 8⭐
The Possibility of Evil 7.5⭐
The Sundial ساعت آفتابی ⭐6.5
Hangsaman to-read
That was very disturbing and dark in the end, didn't notice it was coming. For me, this story showed people blindly follow along with an old idea or harmful tradition because it always has been done that way, so they have the right to think to continue doing this with passion. I think it was smart and very sarcastic that Jackson chose a woman as the winner at the end who spoke out strongly in defense of her husband.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle ما همیشه قلعه نشینان ⭐10
The Witch جادوگر ⭐ 9
Charles چارلز ⭐8.5
The Tooth دندان ⭐8.5
The Haunting of Hill House تسخیر عمارت هیل ⭐8
Jack the Ripper 8⭐
The Possibility of Evil 7.5⭐
The Sundial ساعت آفتابی ⭐6.5
Hangsaman to-read
March 23, 2018
A short and suspenseful cautionary tale demonstrating that observing traditions is not always a pleasant and favorable affair. Not as shocking as some modern day literary offerings, but it packs a lot of punch for such a short story.
October 19, 2021
Listened on Youtube.
September 18, 2022
A los pies de Shirley Jackson y su alto nivel para contar relatos.
Jackson en algunas de las historias describe escenas mundanas en la vida suburbana o rural y la insatisfacción del día a día de la ciudad, mientras que otros cuentos muestran la perversidad humana y la brutalidad inesperada de una sociedad inquietante. Hay una fuerte mezcla de lo cotidiano irrumpido por una maldad inherente de entornos corrompidos o deformados por comportamientos extraños, morbosos y/o muy cruentos con los nuevos visitantes. Lo sobrenatural, lo absurdo, lo fantástico y lo surrealista muy pocas veces asoma o apenas se percibe (es casi inexistente en casi todos ellos)pero cuándo lo hace, queda uno con más preguntas que respuestas.
Los personajes están traumatizados o directamente no se puede confiar en ellos porque no sabemos hasta qué punto están cuerdos o nos cuentan solo lo que quieren para engañar, mientras que hay otros tan sinceros que no hay nada entre líneas que no te quede claro con cada una de sus conversaciones o acciones. Demasiado psicológicos y complejos, hay relatos que parecen necesitar más de dos lecturas para encontrar más detalles que nutran una mejor comprensión. ¿Qué es lo real y qué es lo fantástico? Shirley Jackson demuestra que a veces no necesitas de ese tono maravilloso o sobrenatural para darte cuenta que la realidad puede ser mucho más cruda de lo que en apariencia es. La falsa amabilidad de vecinos y personas del entorno esconden mucho más debajo, cosa que se demuestra con los punzantes diálogos de los personajes.
Las casas son importantes para Jackson porque demuestran un buen signo de identidad que da forma a los protagonistas. Los pueblos y las ciudades también son en cierto grado un buen punto sin retorno para mostrar las incertidumbres de lo suburbano o las tradiciones y rituales pueblerinas que llevan los habitantes por muy siniestras o malignas que no parezcan al principio. Como dicen por ahí, las apariencias engañan y pueden haber más que solo comportamientos idílicos que traen por detrás intenciones perversas y malignas. Y por último, la presencia de cierta figura masculina (te hablo a ti Jim Harris) que aparece de manera física, a veces solo nombrado por otros, fantaseado y/o imaginado pone sobre la mesa a un agente del caos en su creación cuentista de lo más interesante.
El machismo, el racismo, el clasismo, el ostracismo, la condescendencia masculina (paternalismo), el sexismo, las convenciones sociales, los prejuicios, los estereotipos y luego están temáticas como la locura, la soledad, el miedo, la crueldad, la violencia, la maldad de la naturaleza humana y su irracionalidad, la fragmentación del yo, alter egos, etc., son características imprescindibles de su creación cuentista y que sin duda hacen su aparición. Igualmente considero que esto es sólo para seguidores fieles de la autora que reconocen su pluma y el nivel de detalles sutiles en sus historias.
Jackson en algunas de las historias describe escenas mundanas en la vida suburbana o rural y la insatisfacción del día a día de la ciudad, mientras que otros cuentos muestran la perversidad humana y la brutalidad inesperada de una sociedad inquietante. Hay una fuerte mezcla de lo cotidiano irrumpido por una maldad inherente de entornos corrompidos o deformados por comportamientos extraños, morbosos y/o muy cruentos con los nuevos visitantes. Lo sobrenatural, lo absurdo, lo fantástico y lo surrealista muy pocas veces asoma o apenas se percibe (es casi inexistente en casi todos ellos)pero cuándo lo hace, queda uno con más preguntas que respuestas.
Los personajes están traumatizados o directamente no se puede confiar en ellos porque no sabemos hasta qué punto están cuerdos o nos cuentan solo lo que quieren para engañar, mientras que hay otros tan sinceros que no hay nada entre líneas que no te quede claro con cada una de sus conversaciones o acciones. Demasiado psicológicos y complejos, hay relatos que parecen necesitar más de dos lecturas para encontrar más detalles que nutran una mejor comprensión. ¿Qué es lo real y qué es lo fantástico? Shirley Jackson demuestra que a veces no necesitas de ese tono maravilloso o sobrenatural para darte cuenta que la realidad puede ser mucho más cruda de lo que en apariencia es. La falsa amabilidad de vecinos y personas del entorno esconden mucho más debajo, cosa que se demuestra con los punzantes diálogos de los personajes.
Las casas son importantes para Jackson porque demuestran un buen signo de identidad que da forma a los protagonistas. Los pueblos y las ciudades también son en cierto grado un buen punto sin retorno para mostrar las incertidumbres de lo suburbano o las tradiciones y rituales pueblerinas que llevan los habitantes por muy siniestras o malignas que no parezcan al principio. Como dicen por ahí, las apariencias engañan y pueden haber más que solo comportamientos idílicos que traen por detrás intenciones perversas y malignas. Y por último, la presencia de cierta figura masculina (te hablo a ti Jim Harris) que aparece de manera física, a veces solo nombrado por otros, fantaseado y/o imaginado pone sobre la mesa a un agente del caos en su creación cuentista de lo más interesante.
El machismo, el racismo, el clasismo, el ostracismo, la condescendencia masculina (paternalismo), el sexismo, las convenciones sociales, los prejuicios, los estereotipos y luego están temáticas como la locura, la soledad, el miedo, la crueldad, la violencia, la maldad de la naturaleza humana y su irracionalidad, la fragmentación del yo, alter egos, etc., son características imprescindibles de su creación cuentista y que sin duda hacen su aparición. Igualmente considero que esto es sólo para seguidores fieles de la autora que reconocen su pluma y el nivel de detalles sutiles en sus historias.
October 31, 2018
Perturbador, siniestro, genial.
August 7, 2013
Really hackneyed dystopian story that has been written a thousand times.
So the story is chilling ,yes, but only in a gust of a cold breeze kind of way. Like you've felt it before...
Read August 2013.
review rewritten 23 December 2015)
So the story is chilling ,yes, but only in a gust of a cold breeze kind of way. Like you've felt it before...
Read August 2013.
review rewritten 23 December 2015)
November 17, 2016
“It isn't fair, it isn't right,"
― Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
My dad just watched this for the first time today.
For me, my first experience with The Lottery, came in High school. I never forgot it.
There are a rare few books out there I will not review. What could I possibly say to do them justice? What could I possibly say that millions before me have not already said?
This is one of the. It never left me. It embedded itself into my soul at such a young age. The horror-not in the classical "horror" sense. It was more a horror in the way it changes you. It changes one's perception of the world. It wraps itself inside you.
I left the room today as my dad watched it. I was not in the mood to rewatch. I listened though. I listened to the horror. I was transported way back, to the halls of my school and the nondescript classroom where I sat, impatient to get out of class as the teacher lowered the lighting and the film began to play.
It will not leave you untouched I don't think.
And now, decades later, my dad watched in horror. He had many questions for me. It had been so long--I could not answer all of them.
I will read more about others' reactions to this story. I rediscovered it and I am not sure how to feel about that. I know it will linger in the shadows of my mind as I sleep tonight.
Five stars.
― Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
My dad just watched this for the first time today.
For me, my first experience with The Lottery, came in High school. I never forgot it.
There are a rare few books out there I will not review. What could I possibly say to do them justice? What could I possibly say that millions before me have not already said?
This is one of the. It never left me. It embedded itself into my soul at such a young age. The horror-not in the classical "horror" sense. It was more a horror in the way it changes you. It changes one's perception of the world. It wraps itself inside you.
I left the room today as my dad watched it. I was not in the mood to rewatch. I listened though. I listened to the horror. I was transported way back, to the halls of my school and the nondescript classroom where I sat, impatient to get out of class as the teacher lowered the lighting and the film began to play.
It will not leave you untouched I don't think.
And now, decades later, my dad watched in horror. He had many questions for me. It had been so long--I could not answer all of them.
I will read more about others' reactions to this story. I rediscovered it and I am not sure how to feel about that. I know it will linger in the shadows of my mind as I sleep tonight.
Five stars.
June 29, 2024
The people in a small American community have an annual tradition called “the lottery.”
Very ominous in tone as everyone needs to partake in the lottery but it’s very clear nobody wants to win. They’re all very nervous and yet everyone treats each other with respect in an otherwise seemingly peaceful small town. It’s full of ordinary and nice people who believe in the importance of family and tradition.
It’s basically a story about the dangers of continuing traditions without knowing or understanding their original purpose. And a story about human nature. Quite a powerful short story.
Very ominous in tone as everyone needs to partake in the lottery but it’s very clear nobody wants to win. They’re all very nervous and yet everyone treats each other with respect in an otherwise seemingly peaceful small town. It’s full of ordinary and nice people who believe in the importance of family and tradition.
It’s basically a story about the dangers of continuing traditions without knowing or understanding their original purpose. And a story about human nature. Quite a powerful short story.
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