Shirley Jackson - The Lottery - Her Most Famous Short Story!
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Shirley Jackson - The Lottery - Her Most Famous Short Story!
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Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver, and we\\u2019re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.\\xa0
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And I\\u2019m Garry Shriver and this is the\\xa0How to love\\xa0Lit Podcast.\\xa0 Today we are finishing up our series on Shirley Jackson.\\xa0 Last week we concluded our discussion of her most famous book, the one that inspired the Netflix series by the same name\\xa0The Haunting of Hill House.\\xa0\\xa0Today we are going to read the short story that made her a household name, \\u201cThe Lottery.\\u201d\\xa0
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It has had its share of movie inspiration.\\xa0 Anyone who has seen the opening of The Hunger Games would not be shocked at\\xa0the plot of\\xa0\\u201cThe Lottery.\\u201d\\xa0 It\\u2019s\\xa0inspired\\xa0a bunch of other stories\\xa0and movies besides that one;\\xa0I think you mentioned the Stephen King one last week.\\xa0 I\\u2019m sure there are way more than\\xa0that if\\xa0we sat here and thought about it.\\xa0
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True,\\xa0and\\xa0maybe I shouldn\\u2019t have been, but I was\\xa0actually surprised\\xa0as to how scandalous\\xa0this story\\xa0was\\xa0when it was first published.\\xa0\\xa0If we\\u2019re talking solely about violence, by today\\u2019s standards, it\\u2019s mild.\\xa0 There is no blood or gore, it\\u2019s\\xa0definitely no\\xa0Squid\\xa0Games.\\xa0
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I agree- and I believe\\xa0that is why this story- so deceptively simple\\xa0and relatively tame-\\xa0is\\xa0actually\\xa0taught in the\\xa0eight\\xa0grade\\xa0in many\\xa0school systems.\\xa0 It\\u2019s\\xa0disturbing for\\xa0reasons beyond\\xa0the fact that someone is killed at the end-\\xa0kiiling\\xa0a main character is just par for the course in a standard English curriculum- in fact, that\\u2019s\\xa0the big joke among English teachers-\\xa0we don\\u2019t teach a story if we don\\u2019t kill someone at the end.\\xa0\\xa0\\u201cThe Lottery\\u201d\\xa0reads and feels so simple.\\xa0\\xa0And it is\\u2026so why the sensation?\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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\\xa0\\xa0Let\\u2019s talk about the sensation, it\\u2019s\\xa0definitely worth\\xa0noticing\\xa0how big\\xa0a stir it\\xa0actually\\xa0created.\\xa0
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For starters, the story generated more negative\\xa0letters and subscription cancellations than anything the New Yorker had ever published.\\xa0 Jackson herself received over 300 letters just the summer it was published.\\xa0 In her own words she said this, \\u201cI can count only 13 that spoke kindly to me.\\u201d\\xa0
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I want to point out\\xa0that her mother, the ever-inspiring\\xa0Geraldine could be\\xa0counted\\xa0on for a comment.\\xa0 She wrote her daughter with this to say, \\u201cDad and I did not care at all for your story\\u2026it does seem, dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all\\xa0you\\xa0young people think about these days.\\xa0 Why don\\u2019t you write something to cheer people up?\\u201d\\xa0
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Dear Ole\\u2019 Geraldine- at least she\\u2019s consistent.\\xa0\\xa0But Jackson refused to explain the meaning of the story.\\xa0 She did once tell a journalist, \\u201cI 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.\\xa0 The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer at the end would amaze you.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Ha!\\xa0 Well, I don\\u2019t know how\\xa0pointless violence and general inhumanity\\xa0could\\xa0have surprised anyone in 1948 when it was published.\\xa0 That was right after\\xa0world\\xa0war\\xa02, especially the United States, had to stare the reality in the face that we had stood by and turned a blind eye\\xa0for almost a decade to the atrocities committed by Hitler, and there was no one more cultured or sophisticated than the German people.\\xa0\\xa0
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I guess that\\u2019s true, but of course\\u2026for Americans that was always\\u2026over there\\u2026we, self-righteously could always claim we were not capable of such things...\\xa0
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we after all\\xa0were the victorious\\xa0winners in that struggle between good and evil.\\xa0And yet, Jackson\\u2019s simple story does seem to be pointing an accusing finger at someone.\\xa0
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Yes, I totally think it does, and I do want us to take a different direction than many people who read this story.\\xa0 At first pass, and this is how I\\u2019ve most often heard this story discussed, this is a story that rails against tradition, against not questioning authority, specifically religious authority, against patriarchy\\u2026all very easy things to attack and\\xa0very common in the American canon.\\xa0
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\\xa0Well, not just in the arena of literature either.\\xa0\\xa0We\\u2019ve been attacking\\xa0cultural norms\\xa0in one form or another since American\\xa0invented baseball as its own American sports ritual\\xa0over the sport of the British Empire- football or better known here as soccer.\\xa0\\xa0
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HA!\\xa0 I guess that\\u2019s true.\\xa0\\xa0We\\xa0also\\xa0have\\xa0a\\xa0\\xa0way\\xa0higher tolerance for gore than this story\\xa0evokes- I mean we were comfortable with the headless horseman and\\xa0the tell-tale\\xa0heart.\\xa0\\xa0There was something personal about the Lottery that went beyond\\xa0attacking traditions or killing an innocent victim.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0I\\xa0also\\xa0don\\u2019t think many of us would cancel our subscription to our favorite media streaming service (which would be the\\xa0modern day\\xa0equivalent), or take the trouble to dig up someone\\u2019s personal address and write them a personal letter if we did not feel personally attacked.\\xa0 \\u201cThe Lottery\\u201d got under people\\u2019s skins because it was personal.\\xa0 So, that\\u2019s the question I want to ask?\\xa0 If this story is\\xa0about pointless violence and general inhumanity, and if I\\u2019m offended because I feel personally accused, how?\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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So, let\\u2019s start- Christy, we\\xa0talked about if we should read the entire story and then discuss it or if we should stop and start.\\xa0\\xa0We\\u2019ve decided to stop and start,\\xa0but hopefully we won\\u2019t stop and start too much to be confusing, but just enough to be helpful- a difficult balance to strike.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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True- Garry-\\xa0we may fail, but let\\u2019s give it a go.\\xa0 Let\\u2019s start with the first three paragraphs and then we\\u2019ll interrupt.\\xa0\\xa0
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Paragraphs 1-3\\xa0
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What are your thoughts?\\xa0
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Well, the thing that strikes me here is tone.\\xa0 Look at the imagery and word choice- it\\u2019s summer, there is fresh warmth- there are flowers blooming- there\\u2019s not just grass there\\u2019s richly green grass- this is the language of birth and beauty.\\xa0\\xa0 There is also a\\xa0deliberate\\xa0attempt to characterize these people as organized and civilized- the lottery is annual, it takes less than two hours, they eat a noon dinner- the children don\\u2019t gather, they assemble- assemble is a formal word.\\xa0 There is a reference to school. They are being instructed and civilized so to speak deliberately\\xa0\\u2013 the word \\u201cliberty\\u201d is thrown around here.\\xa0 And yet what are they doing, they are stuffing their pockets full of stones- even the very small children.\\xa0 They assemble as family units,\\xa0the very bedrock of civilization across time and culture- they stand together- united- and for a purpose that\\xa0is\\xa0upsetting to no one.\\xa0
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Let\\u2019s read the next four paragraphs and learn about the culture and traditions of this place.\\xa0
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Next four paragraphs\\xa0\\xa0
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One funny thing that Jackson does in this story is play around with names.\\xa0 The names\\xa0are all carefully selected- look at who\\u2019s conducting all of this, a man by the name of Summers- such a happy name associated with youth, strength, growth, life, all of it.\\xa0 But look at the other\\xa0guy- Mr. Graves- he also is responsible for making up the slips of paper and putting the names in this black box.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s a pun- a grave is a place where we put a dead body. It also means serious- like if you are in grave danger.\\xa0\\xa0The black box one time spent a year in Mr. Graves barn, but that\\u2019s not the only place it lives.\\xa0 He is not solely responsible for this black box.\\xa0 It\\u2019s spent a year in the post office\\xa0and also\\xa0in a grocery store owned by Mr. Martin.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Another thing that people have pointed to is all the possible symbolism in this story.\\xa0 It does seem that this box is a symbol, the three-legged stool is a symbol,\\xa0the black mark is a symbol, even the stones are symbols.\\xa0\\xa0But for what?\\xa0 We should always annotate and follow the symbols, but I usually withhold judgement on what they mean\\xa0until I\\u2019ve had time to\\xa0think about the\\xa0story as a whole.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And we\\u2019ve got more names- a lot of\\xa0names actually.\\xa0 One that\\xa0showed up earlier,\\xa0but we didn\\u2019t address is name Delacroix- we\\u2019re even told the correct pronunciation of this name-\\xa0\\xa0
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Dela-Croix- as in French for of the Cross\\xa0
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Yep- except they mispronounce it- they don\\u2019t say Delacroix like you\\u2019re supposed to say it- they say\\xa0delacroy- a corruption of the original.\\xa0\\xa0And that sets up for me another a pattern that I see as you read through all these traditions.\\xa0 Traditions are not fixed-\\xa0like people think they are.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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No,\\xa0They\\xa0evolve\\xa0like everything else on planet earth.\\xa0 We keep what we want and discard what we don\\u2019t like.\\xa0 On my wall, I have a poster that says all behavior is goal- directed- and that goes for entire\\xa0cultures as well.\\xa0 No matter what we say, our behaviors speak for us- and they are all goal-directed.\\xa0 This is true for traditions as well- be it religious,\\xa0ethical,\\xa0or civic.\\xa0
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Jackson is very\\xa0ambiguous\\xa0about her relationship with religion here.\\xa0 I want to point out that this is not a religious\\xa0ceremony,\\xa0and she could have\\xa0very easily and understandably\\xa0made it one.\\xa0 Mr. Summers could have been Pastor Summers or Father Summers or Rabbi Summers, but he\\u2019s\\xa0not any of these, he\\u2019s\\xa0a businessman.\\xa0 I want to suggest\\xa0what I think\\xa0here about-that three legged stool- I\\xa0do think it\\xa0represents what holds up society in general-\\xa0\\xa0three\\xa0aspects of societal authority or control-\\xa0religious, civic and commercial- these\\xa0three legs hold up the black box.\\xa0 They are working together, but none is running the show exclusively.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, if we\\u2019re going to guess at symbolism, I want to\\xa0make a suggestion\\xa0of my own.\\xa0
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Oh-okay- what do you want to suggest?\\xa0
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That black box.\\xa0 It\\u2019s power, it\\u2019s control.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s black because fear controls.\\xa0 It\\u2019s dynamic in that it moves.\\xa0 It evolves over time, as power does.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s cloaked in secrecy, it hides behind tradition, but we see that that isn\\u2019t necessarily true- they went from chips to paper when they wanted to.\\xa0 What they wanted to uphold was the black box of power.\\xa0\\xa0I also want to point out that somehow\\xa0Jackson subtly connects her ritual\\xa0with this black box and three-legged stool\\xa0to the harvest, which I found to be a particularly interesting connection.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s a link to survival and it\\u2019s\\xa0at the heart of human existence.\\xa0\\xa0The ancient Athenians,\\xa0the Aztecs, the\\xa0Incans on this side of the world\\xa0just to name a few,\\xa0but\\xa0many cultures have\\xa0connected human sacrifice to crop fertility.\\xa0In fact, and this may be a point of irony, if you just look across human history from the Egyptians\\xa0to the Chinese, what we see is human sacrifice\\xa0correlates\\xa0directly\\xa0with a rise in a more sophisticated culture and social stratification than\\xa0the other way around, contrary to what Old Man Warner suggests.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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What do you mean by that?\\xa0
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I mean that we can see,\\xa0historically,\\xa0as societies got more sophisticated\\xa0and organized, we saw\\xa0more and more links\\xa0to human sacrifice.\\xa0\\xa0
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Well\\xa0You\\u2019re\\xa0right\\xa0\\xa0That\\xa0is\\xa0counter-intuitive- you would think it would be just the opposite.\\xa0\\xa0Of course, closer to home, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is what Jackson was most familiar with and what is reflected most obviously in her story, there is\\xa0a very deep\\xa0tradition\\xa0of sacrifice but\\xa0not\\xa0human.\\xa0\\xa0This\\xa0story\\xa0is not a direct attack on Christianity by the way, but there is a lot of Christian imagery here- not just with the name Delacroix or\\xa0delacroy.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0There is also the connection with\\xa0publicly\\xa0sanctioned and even religiously sanctioned public\\xa0stonings.\\xa0\\xa0This is a ritual we see in the Old\\xa0Testaman\\xa0of the Bible, and one we see Jesus referencing directly in the New Testament in the Bible.\\xa0 There is a particular story, one of the more famous stories in the New Testament from the 8th\\xa0chapter of Saint John where a group of men want to stone a woman because they caught her in the act of adultery.\\xa0 They take her outside; they\\xa0all gather stones and are ready to murder her when Jesus intervenes.\\xa0 He takes a stick and starts writing something in the sand which\\xa0we are never told what they\\xa0are,\\xa0\\xa0but\\xa0he famously\\xa0says,\\xa0\\u201cHe who is without sin\\xa0cast the first stone.\\u201d\\xa0 The men slowly but surely as they read whatever he was writing, dropped their stones and went home.\\xa0 Of course, we don\\u2019t know what he wrote, I like to think it was the names of their paramours, but that\\u2019s just me enjoying the irony.\\xa0 The story ends with Jesus looking at the woman and asking where her accusers\\xa0had gone\\xa0because by that\\xa0point\\xa0there were none left.\\xa0
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So, you see that story\\xa0connecting here-\\xa0\\xa0
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Yep- I do.\\xa0 There are more Christian references too- Mrs. Adams, that\\u2019s the name of the first man.\\xa0 There is an Eva- and then\\xa0Old\\xa0man Warner- his name isn\\u2019t Biblical but there\\u2019s a biblical connection.\\xa0 Again, back to Jesus\\xa0in\\xa0the New Testament.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0These Biblical references, btw,\\xa0are not\\xa0obscure- these are super-famous passages that every red-blooded American in 1950 would know.\\xa0 In\\xa0the New Testament\\xa0there\\u2019s another story where\\xa0\\xa0a follower of Jesus asks\\xa0Jesus how many times a person was responsible for forgiving another person-\\xa0the follower\\xa0offered a suggestion- he said, should we forgive a person seven times-\\xa0something he finds to be generous-\\xa0to which Jesus responded- you should forgive a person 70 times 7\\xa0\\u2013 I think what is important about Old Man Warner is not his name but his age- and the link to this\\xa0archetypal\\xa0number.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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What\\u2019s the connection- I don\\u2019t think this story is talking about adultery or\\xa0forgiveness,\\xa0\\xa0is\\xa0it?\\xa0
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Not directly, it\\u2019s talking about values and core values and hypocrisy for sure-\\xa0and we\\u2019ll flesh it out when we get to the end, but what I want to point out- is that people\\xa0have somehow found their value\\xa0in surviving this tradition.\\xa0 Mr. Warner brags that he\\u2019s survived 77 of these without getting picked- his importance comes from this.\\xa0\\xa0Warner\\xa0also\\xa0makes\\xa0a\\xa0claim\\xa0that is\\xa0literally a great example of\\xa0a post hoc fallacy- an error in logic which you believe that just because something comes before something it means that thing necessarily causes it- he is literally saying\\xa0that the\\xa0harvest comes as a direct result of the lottery.\\xa0 He doesn\\u2019t invoke any\\xa0diety\\xa0for believing this- he just throws it out there.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0He\\u2019s resistant to change because he\\u2019s validated by this social order.\\xa0
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Well, I can see why\\xa0lot\\u2019s\\xa0people think this story is about accepting things just because they have always been done.\\xa0 Warner clearly makes that argument.\\xa0
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Of course, that\\u2019s obvious\\xa0and there- it\\u2019s just not the\\xa0heart of the story.\\xa0\\xa0I want to bring up one more name before we finish and get to the punch line.\\xa0\\xa0The name Tessie Hutchinson- if we look to history there is one Hutchinson woman who stands out-\\xa0Anne Hutchinson- she showed up in chapter 1 of the Scarlet Letter too- btw- which has a connected theme to this story-\\xa0
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\\xa0but anyway- tell us who this person is- for those less familiar with early American history.\\xa0
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Anne Hutchinson- we\\u2019re going way back now- she was born in 1591- she\\xa0was\\xa0banished to\\xa0the\\xa0\\xa0colony\\xa0of Rhode Island\\xa0after being excommunicated\\xa0from Massachusetts bay colony for teaching among other things that women should read and be in leadership but\\xa0mostly\\xa0her teachings about the Bible were considered heretical.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0She ended up being\\xa0murdered by Indians in 1643.\\xa0 It\\u2019s a sad ending.\\xa0 She was\\xa0definitely cast\\xa0out of the group.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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So, let\\u2019s finish reading the story, and see where we land with all these ideas swirling around in our heads.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Finish the story\\xa0
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Well, Mrs. Hutchinson doesn\\u2019t win a Bendix washer.\\xa0 You\\xa0know\\xa0 the\\xa0psychologist Carl Jung, as you know I like his work,\\xa0stated that even more or less civilized people remain inwardly primitive.\\xa0\\xa0We don\\u2019t like thinking this, so we can justify\\xa0with this \\u201cmass psyche\\u201d.\\xa0 The group becomes the\\xa0hypnotic\\xa0focus of fascination\\xa0and we can allow ourselves to fall into some sort of\\xa0spell.-\\xa0that\\u2019s the word he used.\\xa0 The group experience lowers the level of consciousness like the psyche of an\\xa0animal\\xa0so we don\\u2019t have to take responsibility for our actions on an individual level.\\xa0 It\\u2019s not a murder if it\\u2019s a ritual.\\xa0 How could it be? It\\u2019s sanctioned by the group.\\xa0
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And yet, it is murder, isn\\u2019t.\\xa0\\xa0And where I see all of Jackson\\u2019s ambiguities\\xa0emerge.\\xa0 Her story can be interpreted so\\xa0many different ways.\\xa0For one thing, no one sees any moral conflict.\\xa0 Any psychological explanation for that.\\xa0\\xa0I mean they do this every year.\\xa0
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Talk\\xa0aboou\\xa0the Milgram experiment\\xa0
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\\xa0It\\u2019s a nameless village, full of tradition,\\xa0likely\\xa0corruption, so civilized, so warm, the people were so nice to each other\\u2026all the way until Mrs. Delacroix picks up the largest\\xa0stone\\xa0she could find with which to pelt her good friend Mrs. Hutchinson.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Jackson downplayed her story.\\xa0 In an essay she wrote about it she had this to say, \\u201cI had written the story three weeks before being published.\\xa0 The idea had come to me while I was pushing my daughter up the hill in her stroller- it was as I say, a warm morning, and the hill was steep, and beside my daughter, the stroller held the day\\u2019s groceries- and perhaps the effort of that last fifty yards up the hill put an edge to the story, at any rate, I had the idea fairly clearly in my mind when I put my daughter in her playpen and the frozen vegetables in the refrigerator, and writing the story I\\xa0foud\\xa0that it went\\xa0quicly\\xa0and easily, moving from beginning to end without pause, I\\u2019ll skip a little\\xa0to\\xa0we get to this line\\u2026.it was just a story I wrote.\\u201d\\xa0
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Except it wasn\\u2019t.\\xa0 It was her lived experience in Bennington.\\xa0 Everyone was so nice to each other; centered on civic contribution, religion,\\xa0family structure- and yet ready to pelt each other with the largest stone they could find, given the psychological pass to do so with impunity.\\xa0
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And that\\u2019s what made people angry.\\xa0 We are nice people, but we\\u2019re not kind people.\\xa0 We are civilized, but we are not forgiving.\\xa0 We are religious but our religion\\xa0has been molded not out of the old sacred texts, but out of the box of power that sits on that\\xa0three legged\\xa0stool of our conveniently created social structures\\xa0remolded over the years as it goes from house to house.\\xa0 We are not good, we are what we always have been- ready not just to hurl that first stone, but ready to bring out children along, get them to fill up their pockets with stones,\\xa0all on a beautiful summer day.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Wow!\\xa0 That hurts.\\xa0 Well, we hope you enjoyed our discussion of one of America\\u2019s most famous short stories.\\xa0 Next week, we will find the anecdote to such raw exposure to humanity through the writings of another American native son- Walt Whitman and selections from his wonderful masterpiece- Leaves of\\xa0Grass.\\xa0 We hope you stick around to see what that great American has to say.\\xa0 As always, please support us by pushing us out on your social media-\\xa0facebook,\\xa0instsagram, twitter,\\xa0tiktok\\xa0and/or linked in.\\xa0 Text an episode to a friend.\\xa0 If you are a teacher, visit our website\\xa0www.howtolovelitpodcast.com\\xa0to find listening guides to\\xa0all of\\xa0our episodes.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Peace out\\xa0
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