In the events focused on a village that conducts what several would consider a dehumanizing and cruel annual tradition amongst each other. On what transpires during this tradition is that it involves drawing papers for every family member in their household to settle on who wins the lottery each year. Moreover, the drawing is random for the event and everyone’s attendance is mandatory. Reading this the first time several would consider that by winning the lottery a glorious reward would come as a result from it, however in this village that doesn’t appear to be the case. In fact, the villager who wins the lottery will be compensated with their death instead and what makes the position even detrimental is that for those who weren’t selected must stone to death the annual winner. With the annual tradition and mandatory participation, Jackson portrays this story as a type of dystopia that uses philosophical and religious control to maintain order. Moreover, she uses strong imagery, theme, details, and characters to portray more on this type of dystopia.
In dystopian literature, philosophical and religious control is known as ‘a type of society that is controlled through a philosophical or religious ideology often enforce through a theocratic government’. () Therefore, in The Lottery, Jackson repeatedly uses the theme of religion, to help illustrate this type of oppressive societal control. For example, take the references towards the black box throughout the story from its detailed shape and color as well as what it represents for the people in this dystopian society. Throughout the story, the narrator clarifies that ‘the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it’ () which illustrates how old this Lottery heritage has been going on. In other, the black box shows a symbolism of tradition amongst the villagers on how it’s been made from previous pieces from older boxes and how it’s been worshipped for each generation. In fact, the black box works as a figure item that these villagers are strongly faithful towards to the point that if there were any changes made to it, they would quickly act for it to remain the same.
For example, when the character Mr. Summers had the idea of creating a new box it was quickly rejected by the villagers and that the black box was fine just as it was () With this minor detail, it brings a bigger outlook on how uneasy people feel on the idea of changing tradition and how faithful they are to their own beliefs that any changes to them appear as unnecessary. In fact, even though people are aware of the outcome of the lottery, if the order is being maintained from it will be considered as a norm or respected with no allegations for it. It’s with these types of traits that Jackson’s story creates an effective setting of dystopian fiction. By setting up the introduction of the black box, it provides a strong outlook towards this dystopian society as well as an understanding of the types of personalities that the reader will encounter with each character that is introduced. More of this dystopian fictional world is shown with Jackson’s characters and their interactions with one another. A good example of this would be how Jackson portrays the character Old Man Warner on how he personally feels towards the lottery. While Mr. Summers is drawing papers for the lottery, there is a scene where a man tells Old Man Warner on how other villages are ending the lottery to which he remarks, ‘Pack of crazy fools’ () and next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live hat way for a while'().
127 our experts are availableright now
By making the comparison of society crumbling and living as cavemen due to possibly ending the lottery, Old Man Warner serves as a prime example of how this dystopian society has been living in a philosophical and religious control. As a person who’s been involved with the lottery for seventy-seven years it’s rational for Old man Warner to feel this deeply towards changing the tradition because most of his life he’s lived through this ritual, however, it brings a significant concept on the kind of ideology that the villagers are living in (). They live in the philosophy that the lottery must be conducted every year for if not to do so society would lose its stability and order, which is an idea that Jackson strongly portrays in this character in the dystopian story. Another character, that Jackson uses to organize how this story serves as a dystopian fiction would be Tessie Hutchinson’s character. Near the end of the story, the lottery ends, and a person is finally chosen for it. As for the winner of the lottery, it is Bill Hutchinson, who is the husband of Tessie Hutchinson. Now by being told this announcement, Tessie finds it unfair that her husband has been chosen and tries to almost advocate that the lottery should be changed. Surprisingly, instead of her husband agreeing with her he just responds to her to keep quiet about it and ready for his fate.
In fact, instead of getting the help or support of what just happened from her neighbors, Tessie is protested by everyone that she should be a good sport and that everybody had a chance. With building up this grim interaction with the characters, Jackson depicts further on how this dystopian control has prompted others to faithfully follow their lottery custom as well as to not let anything such as family get in the way in following the ideas that are expected in their society. Now that the demand for change from a single individual has transpired in their society, Jackson illustrates how dehumanizing the villagers truly are amongst each other because of how blindly they worship tradition. Of course, not letting this get the best of her, Tessie demands there to be a recount for the lottery to which Mr. Summers and the rest of the villagers feel uneasy about but eventually agree to it. Unfortunately, Tessie doesn’t get the change that she longed for and ends up paying for it with a gruesome death.
Now understanding the short story ‘The Lottery’, Jackson portrays strong literary devices that that develop her story as a good example of dystopian fiction. It’s with the use of imagery, details, and broad characters that help develop this dystopian fiction’s narrative on what it’s trying to get their reader to come across though. Something as trivial as the Black Box ended up being an important role in depicting how the characters in The Lottery acted upon change in their own tradition to which they saw as chaotic. Moreover, introducing the character Oldman Warner on the expectations and ideology that he as well as others expect in the philosophical society that they live in. The same idea correlates with the character Tessie Hutchinson, an individual going against her society to promote a new change because of how unfair she sees it and how she seeks the help from others to help cause this change. However, instead of Tessie receiving the help and support she ends up getting backlash because of her belief in attempting to change the lottery.
From trying to change the black box and lottery, it’s times like these that Jackson depicts the fear in people whenever their ideology is on the verge of breaking. As a result of living in this type of ideology, people assume that any change could cause a catastrophe and promote the downfall of humanity which exceedingly develops a characteristic of a dystopian fictional society. In fact, even though this characteristic is set for a dystopian fictional world it could also correlate towards reality. Several individuals feel fear of any change or the unknown that comes to them because of how accustomed they’ve grown to live the way they have always been taught with. This also correlates with an individual who sees something as not fair or right in their society and they try their best to cause of change for it, which often leads up to disagreements with everyone involved. Therefore, that is why Jackson’s ‘the Lottery’ works as a strong advisory when it comes to talking about dystopian fiction.
