"The Lottery", Shirley Jackson

"The Lottery", Shirley Jackson

1. heterodiegetic,authorial narrative situation

2. External perspective on all characters

   • no representation of characters' interiority

3. title creates false expectations

4. Evocation of an idyllic setting:small-town America

5. Subtle hints at uncanny situation: children "uneasy", men's "jokes were quiet"; "the children came reluctantly,having be called four or five times"

6. Transition from trivial everyday business to solemnity of ritual

7. Lottery part of social life; part of village's foundation myth: "the box ... that had been constructed when the first people settled to make a village here."

   • Lottery as ritual under threat: abolition in other villages
     • "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."
   • Lottery as sign of a civilized life and integral to village's identity

8. pointless violence,cruelty and cowardice

9. Tessie's children: beaming and laughing when opening their slips of paper;someone giving stones to little Davy

10. Ending: revealing and concealing