The Lottery

Fate it’s a word we all know. But does anyone really know the meaning? The definition is the supposed force, principal, or power that predetermines events. A force or power that predetermines events, well what if that power was evil? In the story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson people are forced to participate in the lottery, and what card you pick could be the difference between life and death. But is it fate controlling what dreaded or relived future the towns people will have to face? Maybe, but maybe not.


"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a very strange story making it hard to understand. But when you look at the symbolism everything starts to tie together. For example colors in this story there are lots of colors toward the beginning of the story there is the color yellow and flowers are blooming and it’s a nice day, it almost sets it up as being a happy story. But then later in the story there is a total change of mood and when everyone gets to the lottery there is a black box, black represents death and darkness so it made me think is someone going to die, or is the whole town about to be wiped out what’s going on? Well after I thought about it I started to look at characters names. Mr. Summers is the one who runs everything like the lottery and the Halloween parties and stuff like that. With his assistants Mr. and Mrs. Graves. With a little bit of time I got thinking what a hot underground place? And after a while I had it, hell is a hot underground place and Mr. Summers is that one that runs the lottery, which for the winner ends in death. So it’s kind of like Satan and his demons in the town taking it over and killing them all one by one. Also a girl named Tessie in the story was late to the lottery and was treating it like a joke, ending in her being the one who won and sadly got killed. But was that a coincidence? Or was she almost chosen to get the winning slip of paper? If so that would mean there would have to be a higher power, and that ties in with Mr. Summer’s being almost like Satan because that would mean he is a higher power. Also some more text evidence is that at the end of the story the winner dies but how they do that is brutal they stone them to death and not only was Mr. Summer’ very egger to get to the end of the lottery like he already knew who it was, but stoning was a punishment that happened a lot in the bible and that would once again proves even more the fact that Mr. Summers is evil and is a higher power. Which makes you think could there be evil disguised in front of me right now?


Which brings me to the purpose what was the purpose;of this story? Well since it’s about evil conquering and stuff, and it uses punishments that were stated in the bible and the whole situation is biblical if you really think about it. It could be the author expressing her beliefs in a very subtle way. It could also in a way represent a personal experience that she didn’t enjoy such as a death or something. But in the end it was a good story that I think was very well written.



Just imagine being trapped in a town and being forced to join in on a “game” that is going to say whether you die or live. Like a 50/50 shot, like being thrown into a cage of bees covered in honey and your allergic, there’s a chance you could live but it is not likely. Evil come in many shapes and forms on this place we call earth there is some good though to, we just need to know how to tell the two apart. And the side we choose to pursue will determine the rest of our life. So just watch your back and like they say don’t judge a book by it’s very deceiving cover.