The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

1. Tone: The tone of the story is calm throughout. It’s like it just grazes over the humdrum of a small town and that is carried through to the end.

2. Plot: The story starts with all the members of a tiny town gathering in its square for an annual tradition. With no rush, every head of the house to the center and draws a piece of paper from a black box. After all heads have taken a paper, they all open theirs to see who holds the piece with a black dot on it. Once they find out which family it is, each member of that family draws a paper. Within that family someone has the black dot. This year it was Tessie Hutchinson. Then to conclude the lottery, all the other members of the town stone her to death.

3. Characterization: There was less detail going into the characters for this story, making it flat. Everyone seemed to go about their own business in this town and all seemed to handle this lottery in a rather nonchalant fashion.

4. Setting: Dust. That’s the whole of what I take from this story. It was June 27th, so very well into summer of probably the olden days of the fifties or so. The location is probably somewhere in the