Rethinking Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

Today we focused much discussion on torture and the big question of how to get people to care about others and not just about themselves, their world, their love, their fear and their well-being. I thought today that a perfect story to get younger people thinking about this would be Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

Here's an excerpt:

It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper. Bill."
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
"All right, folks." Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly."
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up."
Mr. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said. gasping for breath. "I can't run at all. You'll have to go ahead and I'll catch up with you."
The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.

"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.
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That story never fails to give me chills and yet, how farfetched is the "village" mentality?
What do you think? Could such a story, so disturbing and yet powerful, give people pause enough to consider the idea of "sacrifice?" Or what about "justice?" Or perhaps even "security?" I remember reading this story in an English class where we also read "A Tale of Two Cities" followed shortly thereafter by the black-and-white film version. The Guillotine was a very menacing sight but I wonder how any thought of execution or pain could not cause psychological torment? Especially the fear of being killed by children. While children were not performing lynchings, there are many pictures of them at the feet of the dead, usually hanged man and stories of course of picnics by a disembowled (formerly pregnant) black woman. Juxtapose this with the child's understanding of torture and of death. Are most young children capable of understanding/comprehending/contextualizing the murder of someone? Some teens aren't even able to do this. How young do you begin to speak about the consequences of violence and more importantly, the violence of apathy? The apathy of watching people being interned. The apathy of seeing torture photos or watching buildings crumble after being struck by planes? How much should you worry about the violence in a video game when the violence acted out on real people in various countries using various methods of torture, starvation, carpet and cluster bombing or domestic violence, rape and child abuse is ever present? You can't turn that off.

If I teach one day, I want to teach using this story among many others such as "Persepolis," "Things Fall Apart," "The Sunflower," "Ordinary Men," "The Things They Carried," and "Beloved" so that people get to grapple with the "morality" or "ethics" of breaking another's body and/or mind. Why these? Well I think each span various cultures and times. Some deal with war. Some deal with torture. One addresses slavery. All deal with the question of ethics and/or morality and human rights and violation. I would add too, Derrick Jensen's book "A Language Older than Words" and perhaps Kali Tal's "Worlds of Hurt" book as a theory text. Jensen's book deals spans a spectrum of abuse from child abuse to rape of the environment. Tal's book examines the use of literature to speak about trauma (among other things). There are a ton of books I'd like to use but this is where I'm beginning my list. If you've got things to add feel free to do so. Also if you have suggestions let me know. I'm always open to suggestion. peace!