(Image from: Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation)
The sentence in question: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.
What is fair? While the tradition and values of the community are sickening, the process itself is fair in my eyes. Granted, the society follows a heavily patriarchal system: women go with whoever’s name they adopt, men are delegated as head of the family (or whoever is the next male inline). However, everyone, no matter what age or gender, counts as one “entry.”
The “winner” of the Lottery is randomly drawn twice. The first time is to pick the family, the second time is to pick the specific member. This system accounts for the fact that every household’s size is different. You aren’t punished for having many children under one family. The Lottery could have left it at the random individual or allowing a family head to decide who to send off, but the double draw takes any version of “unfairness” out.
Normally, we say a random draw is fair. Everything is left up to chance, however, the process has flaws. Suddenly, the order in which you draw is unfair. Once you’re chosen, it’s now unfair. The chance of being chosen varies from family to family. Was it wrong of Mrs. Hutchinson to turn on her family by trying to get her daughters in the family draw? Screaming about how “it isn’t fair” is a contradiction to her own attempts of escape (making her daughters count twice: once for their husbands’ families and once for their own). I also find it bogus that you are exempt from the lottery if you are injured. So, shouldn’t everyone just have a broken leg on that day?
We’re shown two important things: the danger of blindly following tradition and the randomness of persecution. What I truly deem unfair is the fact you must participate in the lottery even if you don’t want to. It isn’t fair that one tradition can destroy your life. It isn’t right that a single tradition can break the bond of family and turn your nice neighbor into an emotionless killer. If they’re locked into this society against their will, they’re stuck appeasing a system that destroys all forms of community. There’s also no reason for the “winner” to be targeted other than the fact she drew the black dot. Assuming she hasn’t committed any crime apart from being late, she’s just a normal housewife and mother. Perhaps that's just my opinion. It seems that fairness is in the eye of the beholder so we'll never know what's truly fair.
Side note: Maybe this idea is too gruesome, but if they really wanted everything to be “fair”, shouldn’t they have just done a coin flip for each person?
You raise a great point about the idea of "fairness." As a soccer player, I definitely relate; whenever a referee makes a call that goes against us, I often complain or think that the referee is blind or biased. However, I digress.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the story, I definitely feel like the lottery itself was quite fair; people have two chances to not be selected. Although it is unfortunate that if the representative of the household draws the slip, the odds are quite equal.
In terms of the tradition, like I mentioned in class, it has been part of their culture for generations. As a result, most people in the village don't know life without the sacrifice. With this idea in mind, the fear of having a bad harvest season (due to not sacrificing a villager) is totally legitimate.
Great work! I especially enjoyed you point that there is “danger of blindly following tradition and the randomness of persecution”. I feel as though that idea is very applicable to the contemporary world. With policy on fire arms, and feelings that conflict between nations is inevitable, and thus war is ‘no big deal’, we are putting ourselves in virtual lotteries. With fire arms being so easy to acquire the act of going to a crowded city is a roll of the dice, all be it the odds contrast from place to place. This idea of putting fellow individuals in danger through tradition can be applied to traveling via car as well. While people despise when speed limits are lowered on segments of the highway/interstate, data shows that lives are saved and there is a diminished loss of life in roads where the speed limit is lower, lowering the odds of one dying in a auto incident, winning (but really losing) the lottery one enters by traveling by car. Excellent work! I enjoyed how you analyzed the fairness of a legalistic lottery, with the grand prize being publicly execution by your friends and family.
ReplyDeleteOoh interesting points you make here. Obviously, we all read The Lottery and see the process for what it is: the traditional process of gruesomely taking someone else's life. However, in the sense of odds, the process itself is very fair. I think you boiled down the process extremely well. It was really interesting to see the complexity of the lottery broken down by the simple question of fairness. I also like the point you made about how we think things are fair until they don't go our way. Mrs. Hutchinson was probably fine with the lottery every single other year, but then protested it as soon as she was picked. I really enjoyed how you took such a complex aspect of a story and presented it in a way that is easy to follow and understand. Your ideas definitely made me think about the story in a new and interesting way.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading the story, I too got the sense that Mrs. Hutchinson was only protesting because she was chosen. I mean obviously, you can't blame someone for doing that when put in that situation. It was definitely a fair Lottery though, and the process of choosing the "winner" was unbiased. I also agree with your idea of blindly following tradition. Clearly, it wasn't like the villagers were enjoying killing her, and seemed like they just wanted to get it done and over with because they wanted a good harvest. They had been doing the Lottery tradition for so long they genuinely believed the harvest would fail if they did not go through with it, so they were just blindly following what they were told.
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