It's time for the town's annual lottery, which consists of selecting a family, then an individual, from the slips of paper concealed inside a splintery black box which has been used many times before. A small American village of roughly three hundred people has prepared for this day as if it were another celebration, like a square dance or a Halloween program. The villagers then descend upon her, stones in hand.'The Lottery' is a horror short story written by Shirley Jackson, first published in The New Yorker in 1948 and included in her collection The Lottery and Other Stories the following year. Tessie draws the paper with the black dot on it.

The Hutchinson family is called to the front, where they each draw their name from the box. Bill has three children, one of them being Tessie. Her father, Bill Hutchinson, has his name selected from the box. Tessie Hutchinson is late because she had forgotten that today was lottery day. There were other traditions that used to go along with the drawing of names from the box, but nobody really remembers what they are. Summers begins to draw the mixes up slips of paper from the box. He brings the black box (which isn’t the original one, which was lost so long ago that even the village elder, Old Man Warner, was not born at the time) and the lottery begins to be drawn.

In most other towns the lottery takes a long time, but this town is so small that there are only three hundred people.Ĭhildren gather stones, putting them both in their pocket and in a pile in the centre of the town square, where the lottery is to be drawn. In a small town, a group of villagers gather for the annual town lottery. Graves helps Summers organise and run the lottery. Despite their being married, he is more than willing for his wife to 'win' the lottery instead of him. The man who organises and runs the lottery. He remembers some things about the way the lottery used to be run, and laments that time is changing it and young people want it to be stopped. Old Man WarnerĪn old man who has been in the town for many years. The lottery does not come with a prize, instead it comes with a death sentence. Tessie is a young woman who is the unfortunate winner of the lottery. 'infobox Book ' name The Lottery image image caption Tale Blazers Edition author Shirley Jackson country America language English language genre(s) Short Story publisher Tale Blazers release date 1948 media type Paperback pages 30 isbn 1563127873 Character Summaries Tessie Hutchinson

Jackson the lottery summary