“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson that was first published in The New Yorker on June 26, 1948. The story describes a fictional small American community that observes an annual tradition known as “the lottery”, which is intended to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens.
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Photograph by Garrett Grove
Audio: Read by A. M. Homes.
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he morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a
full-summer day; the owers were blossoming profusely and the grass was
richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the
post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many
people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in
this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery
took only about two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still
be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.
The children assembled rst, of course. School was recently over for the summer,
and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather
together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk
was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin
had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his
example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and
Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually
made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the
raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking
over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or
clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.
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Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting
and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in
the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The
women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their
menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to
join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to
their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or ve
times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing,
back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly
and took his place between his father and his oldest brother.
The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen-age club, the
Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to
civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and
people were sorry for him, because he had no children and his wife was a scold.
When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a
murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, “Little late
today, folks.” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged
stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the
black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between
themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want
to give me a hand?,” there was a hesitation before two men, Mr. Martin and his
oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr.
Summers stirred up the papers inside it.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black
box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner,
the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers
about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was
represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been
made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been
