Structure and symbolism in The Lottery.
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Structure and symbolism in The Lottery
In The Lottery, Shirley Jackson relates an unusual story concerning an old ritual within the setting of a small American village. Reading for the first time, most readers will be tremendously shocked by the ending: with an idyllic village atmosphere settled down at the beginning part, the cruel and outrageous ending comes all too suddenly and out of expectation. However, a careful examination can reveal that the shock is not sudden at all; The Lottery actually fuses two stories and themes into one fictional vehicle: the overt, easily discovered story appears in the literal facts, producing an immediate, emotional impact; whereas in the second story which lies beneath the first, the author's careful structure and consistent symbolism work to develop gradually the shock and to present a profound theme: Man is not at the mercy of savagery; he is the victim of unexamined and unchanging traditions which he may easily change if he only realizes their implications.
The symbolic overtones which develop in the second story can be sensed as early as the fourth word of the story when the date of June 27th alerts us to the season of summer solstice with all its overtones of ancient ritual (The ancient rituals were traditionally held in summer solstice so as to ask for harvest of autumn.) Carefully the scene is set----"The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of the full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green." The children newly freed from school play boisterously, rolling in the dust. But, ominously, Bobby Martin has already stuffed his pockets with stones and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix follow his example, eventually making a great pile of stones in the corner which they guard from the raids of other boys. Thus by the end of just two paragraphs, the author has carefully indicated the season, time of ancient ritual of sacrifice; and the stones, most ancient of sacrifice weapons.
Then "The men began to gather", talking of the planting and rain----the central issues of the ancient propitiatory rites, and tractors and taxes----those modern additions to the concerns of man. The men are quieter, more aware, and the patriarchal order, the oldest social group of man, is quickly evidenced as women join their husband and call their children to them. When Bobby Martin tries to leaves the group runs laughing to the stones, he is sharply rebuffed by his serious father, who knows that this is no game. All these descriptions clearly show that this is more than ...
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Then "The men began to gather", talking of the planting and rain----the central issues of the ancient propitiatory rites, and tractors and taxes----those modern additions to the concerns of man. The men are quieter, more aware, and the patriarchal order, the oldest social group of man, is quickly evidenced as women join their husband and call their children to them. When Bobby Martin tries to leaves the group runs laughing to the stones, he is sharply rebuffed by his serious father, who knows that this is no game. All these descriptions clearly show that this is more than the surface "idyllic" small town life, the symbolic undercurrents prepare us to be drawn step by step towards the ultimate, where everything will fuse.
In the fourth paragraph, Mr Summers arrives with the postmaster Mr Graves, who carries the black box and the stool. In the black box which "was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained", the author certainly suggests the body of traditions. The box's shabby image together with the change of wood chips for paper slips suggests the present meaningless ritual has a long history. However, the author does not attack ritual itself. She implies that ritual in its origin is integral to man's concept of his universe, that it is rooted in his need to explain, even to control the forces around him. Thus, at one time the ritual, the chant, and the dance were executed precisely, with deep symbolic meaning. As Old Man Warner, the oldest man in the village, says, "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." The point is that, with time past, the present ritual has lost its significance. The box is casually put away: "sometimes one place, sometimes another, Mr Graves' barn, post office, a shelf in the Martin grocery." Also, people have forgotten the original meaning of the annual ritual, placing it in their mind as trivial as noon dinner, square dance, teenage club, or Halloween programs. All these verify that the tradition, which is passed from generation to generation, has grown ever more cumbersome, meaningless and indefensible.
From the symbolic development of the box, the story moves swiftly to the climax. Tessie Hutchinson hurries in, having almost forgotten the lottery in her round of normal housewife duties. She greets Mrs Delacroix and moves good-humoredly into the crowd. Summers consults his lists, and the lottery begins. In the following paragraphs, the reader can discern the shadow of ritualistic slaughters of the past. Clyde Dunbar is not present and Mr Summers asks who will draw for him. When Janey Dunbar replies, '"Me, I guess." Summers asks, "Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you Janey?" Although Mr Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfect well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally.' In this seemingly innocent exchange, the reader is jarred into a suspicion that the mentioned "grown boy" had been a previous victim and that his father cannot face the strain of being present. At any rate, this loss of son will explain the unusual encouragement given to Janey by the women as she goes to draw her slip of paper, her great anxiety as she awaits results with her remaining two sons: "I wish they'd hurry...... I wish they'd hurry", her sending her older son with the news to her husband who, the reader may surmise, awaits in agony for the outcome, and her later holding back in the stoning when Mrs Delacroix urges her to action: 'Mrs Dunbar, with only small stones in her hands, gasping for breath, says, "I can't run at all. You'll have to go ahead and I will catch up."' But the reader can believe that she will not. Marked by the loss of her son, she may still be a victim but she will not be a perpetrator.
Next, by the sequence of details, the reader is brought to consider that Jack Watson is another villager touched personally by the lottery. Immediately after questioning Mrs Dunbar and making a note on his list, Mr Summers asks, "Watson boy drawing this year?" Note that the name Watson does not immediately succeed Dunbar; there seems to be a special query about those whose names are checked previous to the actual lottery when the names will be called from A to Z. When Jack replies, "Here...I'm drawing for m'mother and me," blinking nervously and ducking his head, the crowds respond with "Good fellow, Jack," "Glad to see your mother's got a man to do it," encouraging him excessively as they do to Mrs Dunbar. Later, after the drawing, they will specially ask, "Is it the Dunbars?" "Is it the Warsons?" Surely, at least the elder Watson, and maybe the others in the family, has been a previous victim of the rite.
At this point, if the reader has discerned all those ominous hints subtly embedded in the idyllic atmosphere and the shadow that many villagers have lost their flesh and blood in the annual ritual, at last, when Mrs Hutchinson is chosen and dies screaming in the storm of stones, there should not be any real shocks. The reader is only led to ask: What makes people keeps such rituals even though they know it is meaningless; and to consider the significance of the stool, which supports the present day box of lottery. Dunbar, Watson and Hutchinson all the victims, not of hatred or malice, or primitive fear, but of the primitive ritual itself. Superimposed upon this powerful body of tradition is the long and old history in its own right. Nevertheless, no matter how powerful it is, it should be indefensible before enlightened man who has freed himself from barbarities and superstitions of the past. Unfortunately, man always fails to reconsider and to examine the already perverted traditions. Therefore, the stool, which supports the lottery box, is the symbol of man's unexamined and unchanged meaningless superstitions and traditions.
With the last symbolic intention clearly revealed, one may understand the deeper significance of the second, below the surface story. More than developing a theme which deals with scapegoating, or the human tendency to punish the innocent and often accidentally chosen victims for our sins, the author has raised these lesser themes to one compassing, comprehensive, compassionate, and fearful understanding of man trapped in the web spun from his own need to explain and control the incomprehensible universe around him, a need no longer answered by the web of old traditions.
Man, Shirley Jackson says, is a victim of his unexamined and hence unchanged traditions which engender in him flames otherwise banked, subdued. Until enough men are touched strongly enough by the horror of their ritualistic, irrational actions to reject the long perverted ritual, to destroy the box completely----or to make, if necessary, a new one reflective of their own conditions and needs of life----man will never fee himself from his primitive mature and is ultimately doomed. Miss Jackson does not offer us much hope----they only talk of giving up the lottery in the north village, the Dunbars and Warsons do not actually resist, and even little Davy Hutchinson holds a few pebbles in his hands.
Structure and Symbolism in The Lottery 16/05/2007
