The Unlucky Soul: A Comparison of Today With the Town of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”

Let’s be honest, the young people of past generations are certainly very different from today’s youth. In the 70s, when it was cool to be a hippie, I don’t think they would have understood the social media-savvy teens of today. Consequently, when reading a short story, which is set in a different time completely, it can be hard to relate to the setting, the morals, and the traditions of various characters. Such is the case in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, in which the town is tiny, the women are not equal, and violent traditions shape the lives of the townspeople, making it hard for young people to relate to this story at all.

            The town is said to consist of three hundred people, which is so unfamiliar to today’s teens, who mostly live in bigger towns or cities. Though I’m sure there are a few tiny towns left in the United States, not many young adults experience an entire town meeting in a centralized location. In fact, it rarely occurs. The fact that the citizens of the town can simply gaze about them to find if someone is missing is strangely mind-blowing to today’s young teens. While “in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days”, in this town it only takes a couple of hours for each male of every household to draw a slip of paper from the black box, while Mr. Summers, the man in charge of the proceedings, reads out every single last name.

            Speaking of the male of the household, this town is highly patriarchal, which makes the story unrelatable to young women of this generation. The ladies enter the square only after the men have already gathered, and then they must join their husbands when they get there, meaning they really have no choice whether or not to attend the lottery. The woman is expected to be standing by her man’s side at all times, but she is not even allowed to arrive at the same time to the square. For example, when Mrs. Hutchinson is late, she becomes the butt of many jokes, including a reference to her washing dishes at home. Clearly, in this society, a woman’s place is in the home, which most teenage women are clearly unaccustomed to those constraints.

            The final reason why young people today would not relate to this short story is also the most obvious reason because people of this generation do not usually have a lottery to decide whom they are going to throw rocks at that day. The fact that this town has a lottery each year to decide who will be the unlucky soul who gets killed by the other townspeople would be considered absurd in this day and age. The biggest theme in this story is how these people blindly follow a tradition, even though they know it is wrong. Blindly following traditions just does not happen for young people today. Though peer pressure is abundant, most teens have figured out how to be individuals and how to speak out against things they believe are wrong.

            “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a story about a small town in which following a tradition gets extremely out of hand. The young people of today have trouble relating to this story because most teens do not live in towns with three hundred or less people. Also, women are not subjugated to the command of men today as they are in the story. Finally, the violent tradition of stoning would not be accepted in today’s world. Though some short stories set in the past still hold common themes for young people of today, “The Lottery” is very hard with which to connect. However, this story does challenge people to think for themselves.