The Lottery

            
             Shirley Jackson wrote "The Lottery" in 1948 about a village that held strongly to the traditions of former generations. "Her short story generated more mail at The New Yorker, where it was published, than any other short story ever had"(Kosenko). The story was carefully printed so that the last paragraphs were not seen in advance. "The majority of the letters writers was shocked by the ending of the story, and was disturbed by the tradition of this village"(Kosenko).
             Jackson deliberately wrote the entire story so as not to give a way the event that is going to take place in the end. The story begins with "The morning of June 27 was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a fall-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green"(Jackson). The first time anyone reads the story, they just expect that the lottery winner is going to actually win a prize. No one suspects that the winning will be sacrificed.
             The description of the villagers assembling is also told without any evidence of the gathering being for something evil. The children come first, and although they are collecting stone, it is not clear that are going to throw those stones at the winner. Certainly, the children were happy, since school was only recently out for the summer, "they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books, and reprimands" (Jackson). Jackson describes the characters to be very normal people. The girls are looking over at the boys, the men are talking about crops, and the women are gossiping .
             and calling their children together. The reader still has no idea that the gathering is destructive. "The setting could easily be for a town picnic or an open-air meeting for a vicious display of scapegoat"(Griffin).
             Once the reader starts to realize more of what is going on, they start to become uneasy.