Talk:The Lottery

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Contents 1 Cleanup request 2 Character symbolism 3 Plot 4 Controversial? 5 Influences 6 Semi-protect?

[edit] Cleanup request

This article needs to be given a tighter structure. The rambling discussion of plot minutiae needs to be trimmed, and original interpretation should be removed and replaced with views from notable sources.

There also need to be sections on the writing of the story (composed in one evening, as I recall) and the outrage when it was first published (it was banned in about a dozen countries and the author was bombarded with hate mail).

I'm happy to work on this myself, but don't have the sources to hand at the moment. Would appreciate any help available. Perodicticus 16:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The story was first published in the New Yorker in 1948, and reflects in many ways the atmosphere of the much less technologically advanced, more homogeneous, and less crowded society that could have been had before WWII in, say, New England or Pennsylvania. I well remember those times myself, and immediately felt that the interpretation given here did not ring true. I remember the shocking effect the story had on me at the time (and still has today), but the scapegoating theme, to my mind, does not need the Marxist interpretation given here. Jackson, in my mind, simply used her own societal background to draw her picture. The interpretation given here is tantamount to a POV.

Of course, any interpretation would be a point of view. To expound on a work of fiction is to abandon the NPOV. In fact, I seriously doubt that a NPOV is ever possible in any but the most trivial situations; after all, being human, we all have prejudices, inseparable from our personalities, that we bring with us. See [1]. Too Old 13:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything hard about having a NPOV here? We can't introduce new interpretations of the story because of the no original research rule, but introducing any sort of "So and so has interpreted this story in such and such way (reference link)" statement isn't a point of view - it's a fact. Chandon 20:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Forget cleanup of quality. Some of the statements are just factually wrong, but I'm not going to fix them right now. YechielMan 17:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Character symbolism

I'm going to be working on characterization for a stage version of this story, and I was wondering if anyone could help me out a bit? I was told that there is quite a bit of symbolism in the character's names and actions. The only example I was given was the black box, which, supposedly, represents a coffin. Any clues on what else there is? Thanks. Linktoreality 21:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plot

How strange. A spoiler warning but no plot summary. Can someone expand? savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 03:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that, I am doing a summary of the story and there is no plot here.

[edit] Controversial?

This comes from Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Culture and Arts:

• The Lottery The article seems to be cut off mid-sentance at the end. Additionally, I don't understand why it was controversial. The only reason given seems to be that it is 'gloomy'. Dgies 16:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The page just needed to be reverted properly (it had been, but not to the correct version). I'm including this here because I agree that the reason(s) the book was controversial need to be more explicitly stated --Gareth Aus 22:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Fixed! Pepso 23:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for controversy: Seems to me the story suggests that it would be better to be guided by reason than by religion and tradition. Plus it invites us to look for analogues (like, to be totally obvious, the military draft, and, to be arguably less obvious, random attacks on homosexuals and the selection of Iraq as the country to attack when Afghanistan didn't hold out very long)in our own society. But, I believe, the stated reasons for objection were that the story was violent, and that it taught people to disrespect their parents (since the kid is made to help kill his mother. In other words, the protesters couldn't read well enough to know that the story was against the lottery, that their negative reaction to it had been engineered by Jackson. Personally, I suspect fear as an ingredient in the protest. "What if this story, in ways I don't quite grasp, is an attack on something that I hold dear even though it is only based on irrational tradition?" Something like the idea that we are inexplicably helped by the crucifixion of Jesus.70.179.142.192

• Tessie

After reading this story several times, I have yet to notice that Tessie is rebelling in any way against the men of the town. True, the men are certainly in charge, but the lottery is a town event which the women seem willing to participate in for the good of the group. Tessie's sudden fear at the end of the story is totally hypocritical to me; she wholeheartedly supports the lottery until her name is drawn. Suddenly it "isn't fair." I doubt Jackson wanted solely to point out the fact that the ritualistic violence is only perpretrated by men who are merely coercing women to join in. All humans possess the capacity for evil and Tessie is no exception.

[edit] Influences

I removed the Influences section, because no evidence was presented that any of the works mentioned were directly influenced by Jackson's story. The fact that they share themes in common with The Lottery does not prove a direct connection, since sacrifice, scapegoating and mimetic violence have been common themes in the arts throughout human history. Besides, the section was in danger of turning into a pointless collection of pop-culture cruft (Weird Al?!?). Perodicticus 12:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of cruft, I don't think it's appropriate to list every TV show, song, etc. that has ever made a passing reference to the story. It's a famous work of literature and bound to pop up in a lot of places; listing them all doesn't add anything to people's understanding. (I wouldn't even consider The Simpsons' reference to the story worthy of mention, let alone Squidbillies'.) Perodicticus 16:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It seems Perodicticus that you are making a editing decision based on personal taste and not objectively. If an episode of PBS Masterpiece Theater's "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" quoted several lines of The Lottery verbatim as a plot point (say something like Brad Pitt's film "Seven") you would allow it to be mentioned, but the fact that this was done on a show called "Squidbillies" causes you to deny a reference seen by 690,000 viewers (according to the Neilson ratings company). Why you think a show directly quoting "The Lottery" and naming its author as Shirley Jackson on air, which was seen by over half a million people is unworthy of a sentence in this article but Marxist and old Pre-Post-Feminist interpretations of the work read by a handful gets paragraphs appears to be bias. NOTE - this is not a passing reference or an obscure influence, this is direct verbatim quotation of the work on a nationwide network on a show likely to be syndicated internationally (in line with William St. Productions marketing policy). One of Wikipedias strengths is its ability to immediately incorporate current information and to expand the Definition of Encyclopedia to the common people. Yes the people at Britannica would never make any reference to Squidbillies, but they would also never allow an entire article to be written about a short story even "The Lottery", it only gets a sentence in their all too short Shirley Jackson entry.--Wowaconia 02:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

If an episode of PBS Masterpiece Theater's "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" quoted several lines of The Lottery verbatim as a plot point (say something like Brad Pitt's film "Seven") you would allow it to be mentioned

Um, no, I wouldn't. (Or rather, I would not want it to be mentioned; only Jimbo Wales can decide what is allowed on Wikipedia.) Perodicticus 09:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protect?

Because of the massive amount of vandalism from anonymous IPs, I'm thinking this article is a good candidate for semi-protection. Anyone agree? Perodicticus 08:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)