Lottery is a common way to raise funds for public projects and private enterprises. The premise is simple: a public corporation or government establishes a pool of money that has a fixed number of prizes. People buy tickets that are randomly selected and the winners receive the prizes based on their ticket numbers. The idea dates back to biblical times, with Moses instructed by the Lord to divide land by lottery as a means of fair distribution. Later, Roman emperors used lotteries to give away slaves and property. In modern times, the popularity of the lottery has prompted many states to adopt it as a means of raising public revenues.
In this story, villagers assemble in a town square on an unspecified day for the annual lottery. The first to assemble are children on summer break who are playing a game of aggregating and sorting stones. Then adults, and finally women, begin to gather. The narrator observes that they are behaving normally, gossiping and talking about their work.
But when Tessie Hutchinson chooses the marked slip of paper, a perverse ritual begins. The villagers turn on her with a viciousness that belies their supposedly ordinary, peaceful lifestyle. Unlike other victims of the lottery, she has committed no crime that the villagers could identify; in their zeal to scapegoat her, they have confused a ritual with a justifiable act of self-defense. Jackson’s story reveals the fundamental role that scapegoating plays in societies that value patriarchal family values, as well as other forms of authoritarian culture.