Happy Book Review day, everyone! And with Halloween so close, today is our last "spooky seasonal read" for the month. (Though who are we kidding? You know I'll keep reading and reviewing the spooky stuff periodically!)
Every year I teach short stories to all of my English classes. Generally, it is the first unit (or one of the first units) we go through.
In my grade 12 classes, every year I get to teach my very favourite short story.
This year my class of 30-2 students said they didn’t believe that it was my favourite since I talk about loving every story, but I swear, it actually is my favourite.
If I have to choose. Probably.
Bonus: its dystopian nature makes it a fairly good fit for Halloween and “spooky season”.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was first published in 1948. As with everything, context is incredibly important.
The story, that takes place in a village somewhere in (presumably) the United States, reports that on June 27 every year, the villagers gather to perform a lottery. Then men – the head of each family – draws a slip of paper from a box. One such slip of paper has a black circle in the centre. The family members of the man who drew that slip of paper then each draw again, and again, one individual draws the paper with the black dot. That individual is the “winner” of the library.
Who is immediately stoned to death by neighbors and family members.
No one is exempt. In the story, even the children of the “winner” (Tessie) participate, as it describes how her very young son (toddler or preschool age) is given some pebbles to participate in the stoning, and he does draw a slip of paper himself, meaning that there is a chance this child would be the “winner” and therefore be stoned himself.
Yes, this is my favourite story.
The stoning itself comes as a huge surprise. It is harsh and unromanticized. The tone is matter-of-fact. This twist at the end is a shock, and it is supposed to be. It is painted as some quaint little farming village, where there is some sort of celebration. Of course, upon rereading it, you find all the little hints that tell you that maybe this is one lottery you really don’t want to win…
But the first time you read it, it’s designed to catch you off-guard.
One of the questions I ask my students, asks them to consider at what point they knew something wasn’t quite cheerful about this lottery. The villagers are nervous, but also cheerful, when they first gather. Kids run and play. Men talk about fields and crops. The women make jokes about dishes. For someone who grew up in a small town, nothing seems terribly amiss.
One year, a student told me she knew “something was up” even before she began reading. “Mrs. Mac said it was her favourite story. No way this was going to have a happy ending.”
Okay, fair enough.
But the story, in all its matter-of-fact shock, isn’t really that far off. Good dystopian writing holds a mirror up to society and basically provides a warning. And that is what this story does.
Again, remember the context. 1948. The themes of this story focus on the danger of blindly following tradition, of mob mentality, and of using a scapegoat. Seems pretty relevant following the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, don’t you think?
And those same themes have reared up again now, very unfortunately.
Villages and traditional values do not necessarily mean safe. Something that seems to make sense, when looked at critically, may not. (i.e. “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”) Just because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”, doesn’t mean that is the way we should always do it.
When Jackson first published the story in The New Yorker, people cancelled their subscriptions. They sent hate mail. They banned the story from certain communities (and even countries!).
Which, of course, just made the story incredibly popular, and now it is one of the most taught and studied short stories in high schools.
And yes, my favourite.
What was your favourite short story in high school? There are some great ones!
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