A recent Final Jeopardy led me to this article about the famed Shirley Jackson short story, and this part in particular stood out:
Perhaps the point of the story isn’t “realism,” and Dr. Kroeber was looking at it through his own particular professional lens, but what do you think? Does the story try to “pull a fast one” on the reader? How important is it that a “fantasy” have a “reasonable” development if it isn’t necessarily the main point?
The point of the story wasn’t realism, but about how nobody cares about bad things happening to people until it happens to them, and then all of a sudden it’s “not fair”.
As far as realism goes, America would have to backslide thousands of years to reach a point where this sort of thing might be considered remotely acceptable. But I don’t have a hard time imagining this taking place in modern-day South American or African tribes, at least the ones far from the civilized world.
Or, of course, in the United States…where the culture of celebrity and reality TV thrives on terrible - and sometimes fatal - things happen to people in full view of the cameras to promote ratings.
I don’t think that is an appropriate criticism for a short story.
Short stories are all about themes, not plots, and background is more important in plots. How the Lottery came to be would be necessary only if the How was was the point of the story. A novel has more time (or room) to spend on development.
That being said, if some kind of background is provided, it must be “reasonable”, within the work’s universe.
Dr. Kroeber’s critique sounds like an angry and irrational attack on something that upset him (with no disrespect intended, as I am commenting on an excerpt from an article in which his opinion was reported by someone else … )
But I completely disagree with ekedolphin’s description of The Lottery. There was a lot more going on there that “It’s not fair”. I think I’ll read that again today.
It’s like that thread about “least believable fictional worlds.” Most modern day fictional worlds make no sense when you think about them for even a few minutes. The Lottery is just another in a long line of that.
The scapegoat metaphor more ancient than civilization itself; the word itself comes from an old Jewish ritual.
Only in the literal sense, regarding America. It does happen LITERALLY in not-so-backward nations who still base their cultural laws on religion (i.e. Islamic women stoned to death because, well, 'nuff said.)
But America is no stranger to scapegoating innocents for the sake of punishing someone, anyone, for a crime they have committed, want to commit, or simply are having problems solving (West Memphis 3, etc.) A common meme in law enforcement is, “Doesn’t matter who does the crime, as long as someone does the time!” And that’s just one of many endless examples.
The criticism misses the point. The story is all about the senselessness of ritual. If Jackson had spent pages on detailing the how and the why behind it, then she would have given credence and respectability to the whole thing and thus undermined the crux of the story.
The adherents of the Lottery do not question why they do what they do. The rite just is.
Whatever the point you might think the story has, trying to figure out how the society turned out that way is missing it completely.
I don’t think the actual “point” of “The Lottery” can be logically explained; it’s a purely visceral experience. The story does not require any explanation and any explanation only weakens it.
The same for Jackson’s “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts.” The motivation of the characters is something left neither expressed or implied. I have the greatest respect for stories whose point works purely without an explanation but are still clear without any articulation.
Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.
Monstro hit the nail on the head. The story isn’t about nobody caring about tragedy until it happens to them nor is it a detailed account of some anthropological rite with unknown origins. It’s about people who mindlessly follow social customs without really thinking about it. But the story was very shocking for the era and Jackson and the magazine received a lot of angry letters.
I always assumed it was set Post Post Apocalyptic. When resources were scarce after whatever it was, the community started this and now it is just done because it is ingrained in their culture even though it is no longer necessary from a survival standpoint.
This was my take on the story, I just read it for the second or third time a week ago. There is a bit about the long history of the black ballot box. The wooden voting chips that are now long gone. No one seems to remember the origin of the ritual, this is inferred from the talk about the box.
People get stuck in their rituals long past reason. To abandon the ritual is to risk going into unknown territory, with unknown consequences, better to stick with what we know without questioning why we are doing what we do. A form of extreme conservatism.
Apparently Shirley Jackson got letters from people who wanted to know where the lotteries were held so that they could watch them.
If true, that tells me all I need to know about whether the story is realistic or not.
South Park fan?
“Sacrifice in March, corn have plenty starch.”
Blood sacrifice for agriculture or other reasons isn’t a temporally distant human activity. Jackson juxtaposes “that thing those savages did over there” with the reader’s own culture, which is initially shocking. The impact of the story, though, is in the belated realization that we are not as removed from this as we think. In the crucifixion, isn’t Jesus a blood sacrifice for the betterment of the community?
Why Kroeber would get hung up on origins is beyond me.
I totally understand how Star Trek uses a speculative future to look at issues that face Humanity today. I just can’t get past the fact that according to Relativity, Faster than Light/warp speed travel isn’t possible.
::facepalm::
The Lottery happens every day, all the time, everywhere. Humans treat other humans incredibly poorly out of Habit and Because That’s How We’ve Always Done it™. This story distills it down to this Human trait down to its metaphorical essence.
Damn her use of metaphor! 
Appeasing the Gods via blood sacrifice has occurred as recently as 1960.
Good reasoning. It’s like how restaurants, even today, have specials on fish on Fridays, even though the Catholic Church long ago dropped the “fish doesn’t count as meat on Friday” idea. It just sank in to the popular consciousness, and hasn’t gone away yet.
However…I didn’t believe in the story, since the cost – one human life! – is too great for people to accept without concern. As every year goes by, and someone loses a parent, or a child, or a friend, the numbers of those directly harmed by the tradition would increase, and would reach a tipping point, probably sooner than later.
Unless the pro-lottery side could show a real benefit to society, the institution would be discontinued.
It’s a perfectly valid line of inquiry, as is my argument, above, regarding consequences.
Besides, we’re fans! We like to analyze things at insane depth. (Look at the thread about Star Trek, Tribbles, and quadrotriticale, or the thread about Harry Potter and quidditch.)
If something in a story seems contradictory to our understanding of human society, you bet the buckles on your shoon we’re gonna point it out!
Or a perceived benefit. There’s a brief mention that some other towns in the region have recently given up the lottery. The implication is, well, those wimps can do what they want, but WE are tougher and more tied to tradition, and WE won’t give it up. Whether increased civic or cultural pride is a real benefit (given the situation) is a question, but we could certainly understand that they SEE it as a benefit …
I didn’t protest your thread. I said that it was strange to me that Kroeber, an anthropologist whose work I’ve read, would have a problem with it.
I don’t see it as contradictory, as I explained above. Nor am I suggesting that you don’t.
All it takes is a religious belief that routine human sacrifice is a beautiful, wonderful thing and that everyone who doesn’t agree with this is going to hell, and what you get is a population that believes in routine human sacrifice.