"The Lottery": A View on Death or the Need for Tradition in Society?

by Casey Watson

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” has caused a huge discussion among the public. Most people hated it simply because they didn’t understand the meaning behind it or it was too brutal for them. Some intellects looked deep into the story to define some type of meaning to the story. Gayle Whittier, a professor at Birmingham University, thought that it was a misogynist parable, or a story focused on the hatred of woman with a moral or spiritual lesson attached to it. He states that the lottery and society favors man as the leaders in the village. In the lottery, two males conduct it and even the males that are head of the household chose the ballot from the black box. Women aren’t given any choices until they are already in danger of the lottery. Women in the village are said to be weaker than the men in the village and they are only commentators because they say more than they do during the lottery: “In any case, the male alphabet continues over the women’s voices, defining the ritual despite them, for, in ‘The Lottery,’ untoward and vocal females like Tessie Hutchinson will be ‘shut up’” (Whittier 355).

Tessie Hutchinson isn’t like most women in the village and she speaks out when she is chosen for the lottery. Doing this causes the village to look at her in a different light because she is challenging the silence of women, as well as showing that she is unwilling to be sacrificed for her family and village. One other point made is that the black mark on Tessie’s piece of paper was made by a man. At this time, only a husband could open his wife’s body by violence. The slip of paper with the black mark represents the dominance that men have over women. Tessie represents everything that a woman should not be. Tessie is “now stereotyped as the uncooperative, dissident, overly vocal, unmotherly ‘bad sport…’ What will be stoned to death at the end of the account is a traditional image of the ‘bad woman’” (Whittier 360).

            Amy Griffin from Schreiner College interpreted “The Lottery” in a much different way. She focused on society’s need for rituals and the tendency of violence. Griffin compares the process of growing crops to the life cycle. She stated that ancient peoples did sacrificial rituals to imitate what happens during a resurrection: “Seeds buried… represent death. But with the life forces of water and the sun, the seed grows, representing rebirth” (Griffin 44). Griffin believes that man has a need for rituals such as this. Another way this is represented in the story is in the relationship between the two conductors of the lottery, Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers, and the life cycle. Mr. Summers is said to set the stage for the whole lottery because of his name and how nice he is. Mr. Graves is said to represent the darkness of the lottery because of his name and quietness. This shows that “Life brings death, and death recycles life” (45). The ritual wasn’t taken serious by the village and some things changed since the very first lottery. The villagers don’t understand the true meaning of the lottery and only continue to do it because it is a tradition and they want to feel like they are a part of that. Even though things have changed in the lottery, they still kept the gruesome act of stoning at the end, which shows society’s need for violence.

            These two interpretations shows that “The Lottery” can have many different meanings, it just depends on the way you look into it. Since this story has been judged so harshly by its readers, I think it’s good that these critics have shown that you can interpret it any way you please as long as you can justify your reasoning. After reading about how Whittier and Griffin interpreted “The Lottery,” in which ways would you agree and disagree with their views?

Works Cited

Whittier, Gayle. "'The Lottery' As Misogynist Parable." Women's Studies 18.4 (1991): 353.

Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.

Griffin, Amy A. "Jackson's The Lottery." Explicator 58.1 (1999): 44. Academic Search Complete.

Web. 9 Apr. 2012.