"The Lottery, " by Shirley Jackson is a story about a small town that participates in an annual untraditional lottery event. Traditionally, the word "lottery" usually involves winning something like money or prizes, but in this particular story, the untraditional lottery winning means someone will lose their life. Each head of household, usually a male, is require to draw a paper from a black box. The family representative who draws out the slip with a black dot will then redraw. This time, the black box contains enough white slips representing each member of the family minus one, which will be replacing with a slip containing a black dot. Whatever family member draws the paper with the black dot is the final winner but their winning will result in being stoned to death. Jackson's central idea is that the societies blindly follow traditions, cultural practices, and/or myths without questioning the validity or need of these traditions. .
Mrs. Hutchinson is a middle-aged housewife, mother of four children, and also the main, dynamic character of the story. She is introduce differently from the townspeople based on the fact that she arrives confuse and out of breath to the lottery, admitting that she forgot what day it was. Mrs. Hutchinson supports the lottery, and also encourages her husband Bill to pick a paper. It is interesting that after she got chosen, she accuses Mr. Summers of not giving her husband enough time to pick a paper. Her statement was, "it wasn't fair"(629). She is disappointed at being chosen as the town's sacrifice. The significance of her arrival and the result of her being stone to death communicates to the reader that the town's people rejected the idea of change and they will probably not abandon the lottery anytime soon. She set a dynamic tone to the story because she went from being supportive to becoming advocate against the lottery system.
Old Man Warner is another dynamic character who is stubborn and live in an unrealistic world that believe that change will only lead to destruction of mankind.
