# "The Lottery": is it "realistic"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2014, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883 "2014-02-09T07:03:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/41 "2014-02-10T23:50:14Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > . . . It’s fiction, and very well-written fiction. It blew me away when I first read it in high school. . . . Agreed. Powerful story, gripping, scary, eerie, and upsetting. It makes the reader think. > [@](#): > > The Lottery is community-sanctioned ritual murder. All it would take to end it would be one exile from the town, or one grieving family member, calling in the state police. Well, it’s probably legal, so the police wouldn’t help. I say it wouldn’t last because you will have a constantly growing community of friends and relatives of the victims, who would constitute a very active and emotionally involved opposition group, whereas there is no deeply-rooted group in favor. You’re pitting “This is wrong! This is murder! I’ll never see my husband again!” against “Meh, it’s how we’ve always done things. Why rock the boat?” Those in favor don’t have any firm reason to maintain the tradition. Any “undecided” group would much more likely be swayed by the arguments of the opposition. In a democracy, the law would be repealed in very short order. It’s like Prohibition of alcohol: even if it seemed like a good idea at the time, the actual experience would be concluded to be an absolute failure. In contrast, take Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” In that story, the rule is understood to be “Our happiness depends on the misery of the scapegoat.” It is universally believed that one single act of kindness would destroy their civilization. The Lottery might operate on that same universal consensus – but the story doesn’t go into enough detail to establish that. LeGuin went the extra mile. Jackson didn’t. Modern science fiction believes in better establishment of the premise; The Lottery wasn’t so much a s.f. story as a “Twilight Zone” story. Ooh, twist ending, didn’t see that coming! But, like most Twilight Zone stories, it unravels a little when examined closely. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/42 "2014-02-11T00:15:02Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > …Well, it’s probably legal, so the police wouldn’t help. I say it wouldn’t last because you will have a constantly growing community of friends and relatives of the victims, who would constitute a very active and emotionally involved opposition group, whereas there is no deeply-rooted group in favor… I doubt it’s even written down - seems to all be on the basis of custom and oral history - so it’s not “legal.” And the state police, that is, police from outside that town or county (for that matter, no police officer is mentioned among the townsfolk), would have no reason to uphold the tradition and _every_ reason to shut it down. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/43 "2014-02-11T04:02:05Z")
Well…while that ain’t how I interpret it…it’s certainly true that, in such a case, the institution is impossible to maintain for any real period of time! As you say, somebody’s going to come visiting their sister-in-law and observe the ritual, and then the cat is way out of the bag. Or, as I’ve been saying, a victim’s friends or family. They just killed mumsie: I think a visit to the State Capital is in order. Oh, yeah, and I’ve got photos, too. Let’s see the Governor ignore this! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/44 "2014-02-11T08:29:24Z")
Heck, compared to the Children of the Corn, these people are downright sivilized. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/45 "2014-02-11T09:37:47Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well…while that ain’t how I interpret it…it’s certainly true that, in such a case, the institution is impossible to maintain for any real period of time! As you say, somebody’s going to come visiting their sister-in-law and observe the ritual, and then the cat is way out of the bag. > > Or, as I’ve been saying, a victim’s friends or family. They just killed mumsie: I think a visit to the State Capital is in order. Oh, yeah, and I’ve got photos, too. Let’s see the Governor ignore this! The friends and family are the first one to throw stones, and actively helped with the killing. Someone handed the youngest kid a rock to stone his mother, after all. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/46 "2014-02-11T10:11:24Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > You’re pitting “This is wrong! This is murder! I’ll never see my husband again!” against “Meh, it’s how we’ve always done things. Why rock the boat?” Those in favor don’t have any firm reason to maintain the tradition. Any “undecided” group would much more likely be swayed by the arguments of the opposition. In a democracy, the law would be repealed in very short order. I’m struggling to see how that same split doesn’t effectively describe the abortion debate in our culture now. One side saying, “Holy crap, you’re murdering babies! Stop it!” and other says, “No, not really, so stop rocking the boat.” I mean, I’m pro-choice, you know that, but that’s how the argument must look to alien observers. When we read The Lottery, we’re alien observers. We don’t know the nuances and finer shades of argument, because Jackson wants us to remain alien observers. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/47 "2014-02-11T16:29:38Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > I’m not Catholic, but the way I read the following sentence from **Justin\_Bailey’s** link is that meat on Fridays is not acceptable at all unless you do some other form of penance. > > “Every person 14 years of age or older must abstain from meat (and items made with meat) on all other Fridays of the year, unless he or she substitutes some other form of penance for abstinence.” Right. Officially, “no meat on Fridays” refers to every Friday. That’s why Friday Fish Fry is a thing at a variety of different restaurants. But it’s only “enforced” (as much as you can enforce these things) during Lent. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/48 "2014-02-11T22:11:09Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I’m struggling to see how that same split doesn’t effectively describe the abortion debate in our culture now. One side saying, “Holy crap, you’re murdering babies! Stop it!” and other says, “No, not really, so stop rocking the boat.” > > I mean, I’m pro-choice, you know that, but that’s how the argument must look to alien observers. When we read The Lottery, we’re alien observers. We don’t know the nuances and finer shades of argument, because Jackson wants us to remain alien observers. I actually thought of mentioning this as a counter-example, because the abortion debate does have extremely strong emotions on both sides. The pro-choice side is far more involved than just “stop rocking the boat.” That debate is a full-on, head-to-head conflict of extremely involved ideologies. “The Lottery” doesn’t even begin to explore the real human-nature emotional involvement of the people. No questions are asked, no justifications are offered. The story is a “punch-line” story. The set-up doesn’t examine the real question, because that would give away the zinger at the end. By the way, I’m actually Barack Obama, posting here in my spare time. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/49 "2014-02-11T23:06:20Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > no justifications are offered But… but… the _corn!_ June! ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/50 "2016-12-15T15:07:15Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Heck, compared to the Children of the Corn, these people are downright sivilized. Stephen King also addressed a similar ritual in “The Long Walk”, written as Richard Bachman in 1979. Both of these books/short stories seem to be influenced by Jackson’s “The Lottery”. As mentioned above, “The Hunger Games” seems to be even more directly tied to “The Lottery”. For some reason, I started thinking about watching The Lottery - the video - when I was in school. I can’t remember what grade, but I think it was junior high. Certainly, the video and story made an impression, but I can’t recall the context of why a teacher showed the video, or the resultant conversation in class. Did anyone else see the video in school? I’m having a hard time imagining that teachers today would show this video or assign the book to read in junior high or even high school. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/51 "2016-12-15T15:37:20Z")
I read it in high school, as I posted above. (Didn’t see the TV movie until many years later). The class discussion IIRC focused on the power of ritual, and conformity, and how social customs persist even after they’ve outlived their usefulness or even a semblance of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/52 "2016-12-15T19:58:18Z")
I read it in high school, and we watched the video. Then the teacher did her own lottery of pieces of paper, and whoever got the black ball - everyone could wad up their paper and throw it at them. Everyone’s paper had the black ball (giving everyone a brief bit of reaction). Of course, then the class clown called out a name and everyone threw their paper at that kid (no, not me). Which made for another class discussion about the madness of a crowd. My son read it this year in 8th grade, as part of their overall “people suck” reading list of: The Lottery Diary of Anne Frank Maus The Giver And a couple of others. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/53 "2016-12-15T20:31:58Z")
Reading through this thread, and especially the mention of Ursula K. Leguin, made me realize that Leguin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a direct refutation of “The Lottery.” ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/54 "2016-12-15T20:33:22Z")
Zombie thread. Revived by a spammer, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/55 "2016-12-15T20:40:04Z")
No, I’m not a spammer. What made you think that? How would my post qualify as spam? I just started thinking about the video I saw in school many years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/56 "2016-12-15T22:22:30Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > I’m having a hard time imagining that teachers today would show this video or assign the book to read in junior high or even high school. Teaching can get boring. It’s fun to freak the kids out once in a while. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/57 "2016-12-15T23:54:13Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Teaching can get boring. It’s fun to freak the kids out once in a while. Ha! Correct! My HS freshman English teacher loved that. About a month after he did a dramatic reading of “The Lottery,” he followed up with Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I think he just liked watching our faces. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/58 "2016-12-16T00:31:14Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > part of their overall “people suck” reading list 😃 Loved that unit. It was so much better than a couple of years before, the “dog’s gonna die” unit. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/59 "2016-12-16T00:44:22Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > No, I’m not a spammer. What made you think that? How would my post qualify as spam? > > I just started thinking about the video I saw in school many years ago. Sometimes a spammer bumps an old thread and is instabanned, but the thread remains bumped, and an excellent and respected poster comes along and adds to the newly-bumped thread. I think Jackson helped pioneer [weird fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_fiction), and The Lottery is a great entry in this sort-of-genre. (That Wikipedia article lists Jackson, so I’m not too far off here). Kroeber was probably unfamiliar with the genre, but I’m not sure I think that’s an excuse. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883/60 "2016-12-16T01:30:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Sometimes a spammer bumps an old thread and is instabanned, but the thread remains bumped, and an excellent and respected poster comes along and adds to the newly-bumped thread. That’s what I meant. Sorry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lottery-is-it-realistic/680883.md?page=4)