The Lottery
...y, the villagers stone her dead. The story is finished, and we find ourselves sitting there, still shocked by its pointless brutality. But why are we so shocked? Because we expect a rational ending after a normal, may be a bit boring, simple story. We are confused, we simply cannot imagine how this sort of things can occur. But of course we must not forget, that these short story was written shortly after the war, and at that time everyone could had seen, could had heard of things which had been unthinkable before. We try to guess why the villagers kill the poor woman. Is it a population control? It would not be too effective since they kill yearly just one person. Is it a kind of entertainment? Hardly, since no one seems to enjoy it. There is no reason except the one that Old Warner gives us “There’s always been a lottery”. It is tradition. Many critics were published on The Lottery. Most of the sees the whole ritual of the drawing and stoning as “scapegoat rite” put into the recent age. The date of the story is the 27th of June, so just before harvest. To make a sacrifice before harvest was a spread custom in the ancient civilizations. At the beginning according to Helen Nebeker the names of the children are the symbols, but I do not really agree with her. In my point of view the only symbol by choice of names is that they are common everyday names, and so quite impersonal like the whole narration. The impersonal voice is a symbol it symbolizes the inhumanity. As the people of the village gathering we can see that the most dominant participants are the males, only they talk about serious issues as well like rain and plants –which is so directly connected to the sacrifice-, the children can play but even at this age the boys are the ones who assemble the stones. The women arrive just later, and they stand next to their husbands. It seems that because of their position in this society –as at that time in the real society as well - the men are the more responsible for the following events. Mr. Summers is a very important symbol in many ways. First of all he is the leader of the village, and so the one who runs the drawing. He runs the coal business, so he is probably the wealthiest too. The fact that he marks a slip with a black dot, and that in a dark place and he sells coal -black stones- shows that something evil is around him, although it not direct, since he takes part in the lottery just like everybody else. One has the feeling, that he is really the one who gains from the ritual. There is another black symbol, the box itself. It is very old, but still it is not the original box, which was used by the first drawings, but it was made of the original one. So the new –what is already old- was made of the old. We do not know how the old box was destroyed, but it is also not important, the fact that it is still used even after the destruction shows how blindly these – and as it a symbol not only these but all- people are connected to their tradition. Every year they want to repair or replace it, but they do not do it, and probably they won’t as long as it won’t fall apart. And like by the box so they won’t change this custom, as long as their society won’t fall apart. Old Man Warner is also a very expressing symbol in the story. His name suggest that he is a kind of a prophet, he is seventy-seven /which is magic number/ the oldest – and so in the ancient society the wisest- person in town. But he is n...