The Lottery and Shirley Jackson’s Unique Narrative Essay Example

In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson utilizes distinctive narrative elements to reveal problems in her fictional society, in order to convey the community’s desensitized nature to the reader.

Jackson uses a non-emotional narration style to convey the impassive nature of the characters in “The Lottery.” Jackson describes the villagers' reaction to the lottery instructions as she explains, “The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were quiet. wetting their lips. not looking around” (3). Jackson’s narration lacks adjectives when describing the resident's perspectives, to depict the lack of sentiment they feel when stoning people. Additionally, the characters had participated in the lottery so many times that they “half listened to the directions.” This displays that the citizens may find the ordeal redundant and uninteresting, further exemplifying the sparseness of their sympathy. Jackson specifies that “most of them were quiet,” when describing the characters, which indicates that there were some people comfortable enough to be chattering amongst themselves. Jackson also stated that the villagers were not looking around, suggesting they were deliberately preventing connecting at this time. By stating that the characters were “not looking around” in a concise manner, Jackson indicates that the lack of connection and empathy the individuals feel for one another is easy to overlook, and therefore becomes normal in this society. Jackson’s non-emotional narration style successfully conveys the lack of warmth in this community and shows how the small details in language and body language can impact the nature of people. 

Jackson uses her narrative to withhold pivotal information regarding the nature of the lottery, and similarly, tradition is exploited in the village as a means of manipulating information and opinions. Following the completion of the lottery drawing, Jackson shares the intention of the lottery, by stating, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (7). On the first page of “The Lottery,” Jackson describes young girls and boys gathering stones. However, the usage of these stones being to kill lottery “winners” is not revealed until this moment in the text, and this formal decision is reflective of Jackson’s narrational usage of withholding information from the reader. Jackson also mentions that “the villagers had forgotten the ritual,” yet Jackson never acknowledges what this undocumented ritual was, leaving a question over the significance of the ritual, and why Jackson chose to withhold this information. Jackson utilizes the original black box used in the lottery as a symbol of tradition. Consequently, losing the original box exhibits how the tradition behind the lottery was entirely negligible to the villagers, and these old traditions were ultimately used to normalize stoning people. By utilizing her narrative to withhold information from the reader, Jackson successfully compels the readers to rely on their expectations for the text, as well as their knowledge. Jackson uses this same withholding tactic through tradition, and therefore the villagers are forced to be reliant on their instincts and limited knowledge to navigate their society. 

Jackson utilizes the dialogues between the characters to display their unconventional conversations, to demonstrate their absence of individuality and abnormal communal dynamics. When Mr. Summers, the lottery official, is preparing to start the lottery, he asks the crowd, “‘Anybody ain't here?’ ‘Dunbar.’ several people said. ‘Dunbar. Dunbar’” (2-3). When Mr. Summers questions if anybody is missing from the crowd, he is confident that the villagers will know specifically who is absent. This expectation that the villagers are aware of each other's whereabouts is reflective of their unnatural connection. Jackson displays the dynamics of the conversation by avoiding pauses in the dialogue. The direct back and forth in the conversation cause a lack of opportunities for the characters to think about what they are saying, and result in exchanges in which there is no awareness. Several people remark that Dunbar is the person absent from the lottery. The repetition of Dunbar’s name being spoken by multiple people displays the strange similarities in their thought processes, as well as their connected observations. 

Work Cited

Jackson Shirley. “The Lottery.” Pdf.