A lottery is a game of chance in which participants are awarded prizes for selecting numbers in a random drawing. Often, a lottery is run when something is limited but still high in demand; examples include kindergarten placements at a reputable school and unit allocations in a subsidized housing block. Lotteries also occur in sports and the financial lottery, where players pay a small amount to select a group of numbers or have machines spit them out, and then win prizes if enough of their numbers match those randomly drawn by a machine.
People love to gamble, and that’s part of what draws them to lotteries. There is, however, much more going on with these lottery games than that. They dangle the promise of instant riches to folks who have a very hard time making ends meet. They are a form of redistribution, and they make people feel hopeful that they can get a better life without having to work for it.
In the story Shirley Jackson tells, villagers gather for an annual lottery that concludes in the violent murder of one villager. This ritual, which originated under the guise of a sacrifice for a bountiful harvest, now serves only to satisfy the villagers’ lust for violence and power. The villagers’ blind acceptance of this tradition is disturbing, as it points to the dangerous side of human nature. The villagers’ actions, including the stoning of a man in front of his wife and children, are disturbing.