Brief Summary Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

It is the morning of June 27th and the village people are gathering in the square. The village consists of about three hundred people so, the lottery is not expected to take much longer than two hours in total. In other villages it can take up to two days to complete the lottery. The children start arriving first, including Bobby Martin, Harry Jones, and Dickie Delacorix, all gathering together and running off to go collect pills of pebbles. The men begin to gather, talking and joking to their friends and family around them. The lottery, along with other programs, is conducted by Mr. Summers. He arrives late holding a black box and Mr. Graves following behind him carrying a three- legged wooden stool. The lottery is done annually. It has changed slightly since years ago concerning some of its rituals, but is basically done the same. Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves make the slips for the lottery the night before in Mr. Summers coal company. They put the little black box on

Mr. Summers swears in. Mrs. Hutchinson comes running in late. She digs through the crowd looking for her husband. Mr. Summers begins the draft by asking if anyone is missing. People begin to speak of Clyde Dunbar, but his wife assures everyone she is drawling for him. He reminds everyone of the rules of the lottery and that no one must open their slip till everyone has gotten them. He reads off the names of each family to come grab a slip beginning with the men of the household. Villagers chat while Mr. Summers is reading off the names. They speak of other towns giving up the lottery, which Old Man Warner is completely against. They say that people just are just no the same as they used to be. Everyone gets their slips and is instructed to open them. Everyone begins to chatter saying Bill Hutchinson's name, who has the ticket with the block dot on it. His wife argues about how it is not fair and he was not given enough time to