A SCARY DAY LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

1. SOINGNT

the act of killing by throwing stone to someone.

2. LORYTTEa gambling game usually

organized to raise money.

3. It is the biggest gambling game in the country.

4. What agency in the Philippines operates the question in no. 4.?

WOULD YOU JOIN THE LOTTERY IF EVER YOU LIVE IN IN THE PLACE WHERE THE STORY HAPPEN?

Background of the Story

> Written in 1948, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson is a work of fiction that demonstrates conformity and rebellion while suggesting that the lottery is a ritualistic ceremony.

>"The Lottery” combines a peaceful small-town-America setting with a horrific shock ending.

>1948 in the New Yorker magazine>“The Lottery is reported to have generated more

negative letters from readers than any other story previously published by the magazine. Many cancelled their subscriptions to the magazine.

>Readers were offended by the work and its suggestion that evil could be so easily and commonly carried out. They felt the stoning was a pointless, arbitrary, violent sacrifice.

Shirley Hardie JacksonBorn: December 14, 1916 in San Francisco,

California in USADied: Heart failure on August 8th, 1965 in

Bennington, VermontJackson received her BA in English from

Syracuse University. Married with: Stanley Edgar Hyman, a staff

writer and literary critic at the New Yorker in the 1940s.  She and Hyman had 4 children.

The tone of most of her works is odd and macabre, with an impending sense of doom, often framed by very ordinary settings and characters.

Background of the Author

1. Tessie HutchinsonShe’s the one who is protesting that it is the

lottery was not fair and the one being stoned to death.

2. Mr. Joe SummersHe runs a coal business.

3. Mr. Harry GravesThe postmaster. Mr. Graves helps Mr.

Summers prepare the papers for the lottery and assists him during the ritual.

4. Old Man WarnerThe character who wants to preserve the

culture.

Characters

5. Mrs. GravesMrs. Graves is the wife of Mr. Graves. She tells Tess

frankly that the lottery is fair – after all, everyone took an equal chance.

6. Mr. Bill HutchinsonBill Hutchinson is the husband of Tess Hutchinson.

When she protests his selection in the lottery, he tells her to shut up.

7. The Hutchinson ChildrenThe Hutchinson children are named Bill, Jr., Nancy,

and Dave. Nancy has supporters in the crowd who openly express hope that she is not the one chosen.

9. Mr. and Mrs. MartinMr. and Mrs. Martin are the parents of Baxter and

Bobby. They run the grocery store.

Characters

10. Baxter MartinBaxter is the oldest son in the Martin family.

11. Mr. and Mrs. AdamsMr. Adams is the first person to draw in the lottery, which makes sense alphabetically.

12. The Delacroix Family13.The Watsons 14. The Dunbars15. The Boys ( Bobby Martin, Dickie Delacroix,

Harry and Bobby Jones)

Characters

Summary

On a late summer morning, the villagers of a small town gather to conduct their annual lottery. There is an air of festivity among them, especially the children. Only a few in the crowd reveal slight hints of tension or unease. The lottery has a long history in this and surrounding towns. The people who run it—in this town, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves—work hard to preserve the rituals that have been passed down from year to year. Changes have crept in, and some old-timers such as Old Man Warner regret what they perceive as a loss of a heritage that has preserved the happiness and prosperity of the town over time.

Summary

All the villagers finally arrive, Tessie Hutchinson being one of the last. Mr. Summers conducts the preliminaries, ensuring that each family is represented and that those who are absent have someone on hand to draw for them. Finally the lottery begins: Heads of families step forward and draw small paper slips from the black box that Mr. Summers keeps for the occasion. As this goes on, townspeople engage in small talk, and the air of festivity gives way to a pervasive aura of nervousness.

Summary

When all the slips are drawn, Bill Hutchinson discovers that he has picked the one marked with a black spot. Immediately Tessie begins complaining that the drawing was not conducted properly. Others encourage her to be a good sport, however, and her protests fall on deaf ears. She and the other members of her immediate family now come forward and draw slips, as various townspeople whisper apprehensively. Tessie draws the slip with the black spot. Mr. Summers commands, “Let’s finish quickly.”

The townspeople now move off to a cleared spot outside the town, Tessie in the center of the group. A desperate woman now, Tessie entreats the crowd to go through the ritual again, doing things fairly. Ignoring her protests, the men, women, and children of the town begin stoning her.

Setting

“In a warm day in late June (the 27th, to be exact), villagers gather in the square” Note: Jackson didn’t specify the exact place which the event took place, some critics of the story claim that it was in England but some claim it was in United States because the only clue given by Jackson is that it is in a small village which is merely composed of 300 people.

Point of View

It is Third Person Objective. This is Objective because the narrator

remain outside the character’s mind, they only present dialogues and recounting events. Thus, they allow readers to interpret the actions as well as the dialogues of the characters without interference.

The narrator is not part of the story that’s why its third person

Character

Dynamic:Tessie Hutchinson in

her view of the Lottery.Mrs. Graves in their

treatment to TessieMrs. Delacroix in their

Treatment to Tessie

Static: in their atttitude on the Lottery

Mr. Joe Summers

Mrs. Graves

Mrs. Declaroix

Mr. Bill Hutchinson

Mr. Harry Graves

Old Man Warner

Mr. and Mrs. Martin

Baxter Martin

Mr. and Mrs. Adams

Motivation

“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”

Exposition

“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.

Rising Action

When they started the lottery, the representative or the fathers of the families started to pick strips of paper from the black box starting with Mr. Adams because the basis of picking strips is alphabetically.

Climax

When Tessie Hutchinson knew that she picked the paper with the black mark.

Falling Action

Its when the people started to prepare the stones with Mrs. Hutchinson complaining saying “It isn’t fair”

Denouement/Resolution

The people started to stone her to death.

Other Elements Present in The Story

Foreshadowing: hint provocatively at what is to come

At the end of "The Lottery," the reader discovers with horror what is about to happen, but the story ends with the casting of the first stones. Jackson prefers to leave the gruesome details to the reader's imagination.

ConflictThe conflict occurs when Tessie

starts complaining that his husband wasn’t given ample time to pick.

Similar Practice with the story

• In ancient Athens, Greece, Athenians believed that human sacrifice promised fertile crops. • Each year in ancient Athens, as one

story goes, during the annual festival called Thargelia, citizens would stone to death a man and a woman selected for this purpose.

Death was thought to bring prosperity to the community

• A similar ritual sacrifice occurs with Tessie Hutchinson.

• This explains the village member's remark, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”

Probing deeper in the story....

Is there a conflict between men and women in the story?

A conflict between male authority and female resistance is subtly evident throughout “The Lottery.”

Male vs. Female

• Early in the story, the boys make a great pile of stones in one corner of the square, while the girls stand aside talking amongst themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys.

• When Tessie draws the paper with the black mark on it, Tessie does not show it to the crowd; instead her husband Bill forces it from her hand and holds it up.

SYMBOLISM…

Symbolism on things

• Black: the color for death, mourning, punishment, penitence in Western civilization.

• Black box: may be coffin• Black spot: death, sin or

unclean.

Symbolism on Names

• Tessie Hutchinson: Most likely an allusion to Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643), American religious enthusiast who founded the Puritan colony of Rhode Island. She had new theological views which opposed her to other ministers. After a local trial banished her she was tried before the Boston Church and formally excommunicated. Anne and fifteen of her children were subsequently murdered by the Indians in 1643.

• The parallelism between her story and Tessie's is clear: TO HER, EXCOMMUNICATION MEANT SPIRITUAL DEATH just as TO TESSIE BEING CAST OUT FROM THE GROUP = DEATH.

• Delacroix (“of-the-Cross”)> vulgarized to Della-croy

(no longer truly of the cross) > Some critics suggest that

Mrs. Delacroix represents the duality of human nature: she is pleasant and friendly on the outside, but underneath she possesses a degree of savagery.

Symbolism on Names

• Summers: the season of summer is associated with youth, strength, growth, prime of life, warmth, leisure, prosperity, happiness, blooming, blossoming

Mr Summers is the head of the coal business, which could symbolize close contacts with the underworld, evil; lurking just beneath the surface.

Coal is earthly (as opposed to heavenly); black; formed in the process of many years (long-term process); formed from compressed, decaying matter; early chemistry used a black spot to symbolize coal.

Marxist critics point out how Mr. Summers, who would have been one of the wealthier citizens, leads the lottery— those with money control the people’s activities.

Symbolism on Names

• Graves : the obvious grave = place of entombment/death

• Mr. Graves quietly assists Mr. Summers, with “Graves” hinting at a dark undertone.

• Grave = serious; hints that the lottery may not be a frivolous contest (“Mr. Graves said gravely”)

• Critics have said that Jackson creates balance by juxtaposing Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves to share in the responsibilities of the ritual: Life brings death, and death recycles life.

Symbolism on Names

• Adams : reference to the first man, the first sinner

• While he seems to be one of the few who questions the lottery when he mentions that another village is thinking about giving up the ritual, he stands at the front of the crowd when the stoning of Tessie begins. Like the biblical Adam, Adams goes along with the sin; he follows others in their evil.

Symbolism on Names

• Old Man Warner: Resistant to change and representing the old social order, he warns about how important the event is to the survival of the village.

• Old man Warner is 77 years old the number 7 has many connotations, but one common connotation is that 7 is lucky …he has been lucky to avoid the lottery so many times.

Symbolism on Names

• Dunbar: breaking this name down into its 2 syllables, one can come up with:

• 1. dun – to treat cruelly; or a dull, brownish gray color

• 2. bar - Something that impedes or prevents action or progress; relatively long, straight, rigid piece of solid material used as a barrier, support, or fastener; A standard, expectation, or degree of requirement;

Symbolism on Names

• Not all rituals are beneficial, positive or civilized

• Acts of violence, hatred, murder are not acceptable just because many people participate

• Traditions and rituals should be questioned; group mentality can be harmful

• People are not all good or all evil but a mixture of both.

• The society your up to may determine the faith of a person.

Themes

Shirley Jackson’s Response• Generally, she refused to explain the

meaning of the story.• She did once tell a journalist: “I suppose I

hoped, by setting a particularly brutal rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity of their own lives [but] I gather that in some cases the mind just rebels. The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer at the end would amaze you.”

Quote from the story

“although the villagers forgotten the ritual and the original black box, they still remembered to use the stones”

Thank You