Short Story Classics: The Lottery

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson 

Published in 1948, this prescient short story speaks to the nature of herd mentality and the origin of our own thoughts and desires. 

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 a vague sense of something darker lurking beneath the surface: boys are loud and raucous, the girls are more reserved, and the men tell jokes in an odd humorless fashion.  

If this feels like a setup to a modern horror movie, it’s because Jackson was way ahead of her time, building tension and unease through uncanny interactions where everything seems just slightly off.  

The ironic twist of the lottery being something no one wants to win is brilliant on its own, boosted by the sense of foreboding that comes before it.  It is deeply unsettling in its own right.  What really heightens the atmosphere is that no one seems to know the origins of the lottery, where it comes from or why it's there.  It exists as a tradition that must continue to exist simply because we must continue it for tradition’s sake.  It is wholly absent from any external justification or basis.  

What seems like a contained and horrific short story actually contains broader themes about why evils are allowed to persist in the world.  People fear that speaking up will turn them into pariahs, or that breaking with tradition will unwind some vague foundation of community.  The evil lurking within the need to belong to something greater than ourselves and the sacrifices we will make to maintain inclusion suggests a dark side of the human condition, something Jackson understood all too well.