To Shock and to
Enlighten: “The
Lottery” by Shirley Jackson There is no other
short story that sparked a controversy like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. The short fiction, when published in 1948 in the prestigious paper, The New Yorker, met such a radical response that the phenomenon made the literary piece a classic right there and then. Jackson received hate mail and The New Yorker received subscription cancellations from its outraged
readers. The magnitude of the negativity is a bewildering thought for Jackson, who believed that her story is an enlightening reading rather than a literary piece that would inspire outrage and disgust. The magnitude of the reading response is staggering as well; a short story attracting nationwide attention is enough of an achievement for any writer, no matter how volatile the attention may be. The story has a simple plot, but a completely turbulent ending. In a seemingly quiet and peaceful New England town, the townsfolk are celebrating their traditional yearly lottery. As the people gather in the square to carryout their accustomed ritual, several things are disclosed about the town and its people, but never the prize of the lottery. Towards the end of the story, the shocked
Reader learns that the lottery prize is death. The lottery winner is pelted with stones until he or she dies. The lingering question most often asked by the outraged readers is the basis of the short story. Where was this barbaric New England town located, and why is this yearly tradition allowed? Because of this controversial negative response, Jackson needed to explain her story to the public. This action alone is unique to Jackson and her controversial fiction, since writers are usually asked to explain their work in an academic setting for an academic audience. For Jackson, though, the setting for her explanation warranted a bigger audience, in a bigger setting. This need for an explanation demonstrates the power and influence of Jackson’s story; it affirms the power of literature to enlighten the intellectual community. In an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle in July 22, 1948, Jackson disclosed that she wanted to confront readers with the pointlessness of violence and the inhumanity in their own lives. True enough, as all confrontations go, the party confronted reacted negatively: in anger, and in denial. The need to shock the readers and to enlighten them in a radical way is ingenious creativity. A writer’s
task is to comment on how a person or a society treats life’s substantial issues, to provide his or her readers some kind of illumination. In this respect, Shirley Jackson truly accomplished this herculean task. The volatile theme of this short story makes the reader realize that humankind is capable of brutality, of ‘inhumanity’ in living seemingly quiet, ordinary lives. By subscribing to the idea of destructive, irrelevant traditions and by applying inhuman solutions to human dilemmas, the reader is as guilty as the villager who stoned Mrs. Hutchinson in the short story. For instance, the basic human tendency to finger a person in order to deflect the blame from oneself is an inhuman act. In addition, the concept of using a scapegoat in critical situations is likewise a brutal act that everyone, even the authorities, is quick to utilize. “The Lottery” is a shocking short story that demonstrates the ingenuity of a writer to illuminate her readers. The story is riveting; it astounds the reader with such a potent force that it inspires critical thinking and insightful conclusions about one’s own life. The value of a literary work lies in its power to illuminate its reader, and “The Lottery” undoubtedly accomplishes this task with a powerful, awakening blow.
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