The Lottery

16 Pages 3968 Words

The lottery begins happily: clear and sunny, with [the] fresh warmth of a full- summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green"
(Jackson 1948: 674). Such a beginning lures the unwary reader into a comfortable lull. The villagers are ordinary people in an ordinary town. Pleasant, friendly and simple, the men talk about ,,tractors and taxes"(ebd.) while the boys run around piling up stones. It begins as the perfect day to be alive.
The setting set forth by Shirley Jackson in the beginning of ,,The Lottery" creates a mood of peacefulness and tranquillity. This setting creates an image in the mind of the reader of a typical town on a normal summer day.
With the very first words Jackson begins to establish her plot`s environment. To begin, she tells the reader what time of day and what time of year the story takes place. This is important to get the reader to focus on what a typical day it is in this small town. The time of day is set in the morning and the time of year is early summer. She also mentions that school has just recently let out for summer break, which of course allows the children to run around at that time of day. The town is one of any normal rural community. Furthermore, she describes the grass as ,,richly green" and that ,,the flowers were blooming profusely"(ebd.). These descriptions of the surroundings give the reader a serene felling about the town. Also, this makes the reader feel comfortable about it as if there was nothing wrong in this quaint town.
Jackson puts in perspective the location of the square ,,between the post office and the bank" (ebd.). This visualizes for the reader what a small town this is, since everything seems to be centralized at or near the town square. This is also key in that the town square is the location for the remaining part of the story. The town square is an important location for the setting since the ending of the story will take place there.
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