The Truth Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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What is the purpose of the story, “The Lottery”? Is it just a made up story that Shirley Jackson just thought up? This story talks about a big part of history in its own way, but, is it really just made up, or is it based off of an actual stoning event? The mystery of the story, “The Lottery” is going to finally be solved. Shirley Jackson has always been an author. It seems as if most of her stories are more mystical and/or horrific. Jackson was born in San Francisco, 1916. She had started her career as an author as early as 1940. When talking about her stories, it is mentioned that “Her fiction often juxtaposes the realistic with the horrible and fantastic” (Funk & Wagnall’s New World Encyclopedia). The initial publication of “The Lottery” …show more content…
Stoning has been used as criminal punishment for thousands of years. Stoning has gone as far back as Biblical times, used for punishing those who have done wrong. Although, in the story, that is not what, “The Lottery” is. The real lottery is when somebody buys a ticket with a specific number, and they broadcast drawing out a number. The person with that number on their ticket wins a lot of cash. The only thing that is similar between Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, and the actual lottery, is the anticipation of the drawing. The community members in the story have an annual “lottery” where the man of the house will draw out a slip from the “black box”. If the slip that they get has a black dot on it, their family must go up to the front. From there, all of the family members must draw out a slip. Whichever family member has a black dot on their slip is the one that gets stoned. Now, that is not originally how stoning was meant to take place. According to the article, “Stoning for Adultery in Christianity and Islam and its Implementation in Contemporary Muslim Societies”, stoning is a form of punishment that applies to cases that have to do with adultery. In the story, this type of crime did not take place. So, why would Jackson write a stoning situation like …show more content…
Some people may think that the story is maybe based off of the stoning of Stephen, or maybe a more recent stoning event. When you compare the event in the Bible, to the story “The Lottery”, there are really no similarities of the two. The only thing that is the same in these two stories is the stoning. Looking through multiple articles, it is not certain that the story was based off of an actual event. Around the time that the story was published in The New Yorker, people were already asking the questions: Who is the story based off of? What is the story based off of? Where did this even take place? After Jackson had gotten those questions, she never really gave an answer on whether the story was based from anything or not. When reading the story, there actually aren’t that many similar events that go on in the story that relate to actual stoning. Stoning was meant as a punishment for committing a crime that was more against religion. In the story though, that is not the case. The story just tells of a how a small town just kills off their town members for the fun of it, and there is never really a clear explanation on why this happens annually, they just do
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