Jessica Harris 
 Professor Nicole Castle 
 ENG 1220 
 29 November 2012 
 Ordinary Monsters 
 On a warm and sunny summer morning, families take a break from their everyday activities to gather for a civic activity. Children play, men discuss farm business, and women gossip. The first few paragraphs of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" set us up for a quaint story about rural America. The third person point of view gives us an objective illustration of the ordinary. As we read further, though, we see something might be amiss. Children gather rocks (Jackson 133), and people seem not so much excited as anxious. To our horror, we learn that Jackson uses many literary tools to tell us a story about monsters, disguised as small town Americans. 
 Throughout the normalcy, Jackson provides us with some subtle foreshadowing of the horror to come. Most notably, in the second paragraph we see boys gathering stones, and hoarding their piles. Strange? Yes. Ominous? At first glimpse, I think not. My four year old loves rocks, and treats them like gold. Of course, we learn later these children are not young geologists in training, but are excitedly preparing for a no big deal stoning. Once Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the gathering, her husband hauntingly says to her, "'thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie' " (Jackson 135). Little did he know he would actually have to get on without her. Christoph Breitsprecher tells us "indeed the reader starts to feel more and more uncomfortable, whereas the commonplace attitude of the townspeople remains even during the stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson. They are unaffected by the out come [sic] except for the victim of their collaborate murder." 
 At first glance, the villager's names seem ordinary, dull even; but Jackson deliberately chooses her character's names to give us a more sinister insight into "The Lottery." Most important is the character of Tessie Hutchinson. Many believe she is an allusion to Anne Hutchinson who was charged with heresy in colonial Boston, and was murdered by Native Americans (Biography: Anne Hutchinson). Strengthening the claim to this allusion- Anne Hutchinson's husbands name was Will (Biography: Anne Hutchinson), and Tessie's husband's name is Bill. Anne Hutchinson provides us another example of normal people acting evil. Though Native Americans killed her, her death ultimately resulted from the persecution and outcast of her peers. Mr. Summers name alludes to the normally happy season. Mr. Graves name is a foreshadowing of the death to come. Another family worthy of noting is the Delacroixs- a French name meaning "of the cross." Old Man Warner does as his name suggests- he warns the townspeople of the dangers of giving up the lottery. Looking deeper into character names shows us Jackson's deliberate emphasis on the theme of the wickedness of ordinary people. 
 Jackson urges us to consider the villagers morality by saturating "The Lottery" with religious and biblical imagery. We see attention drawn to the name Delacroix (of the cross). Jackson not only mentions the name, but also draws further attention to it by telling us how the villagers pronounce it. Mr. Summers places the infamous black box on a less noted but no less significant three-legged stool, which represents the Christian Holy Trinity- the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Let us not forget the aforementioned allusion to Annie Hutchinson who suffered religious persecution. The first name called to draw for the lottery is Adams (Jackson 136), an allusion to Adam of the Garden of Eden. Of course, the stoning itself was a popular death sentence in the bible. And 
 "with stoning, men do not even have to take the guilt for their blood lust. It is a community activity where, while there is someone executed, there is no executioner (Janeway 1966: 212). No one is guilty and murder is excepted and celebrated yearly in those quiet villages that hold the lotteries (Breitsprecher). 
 While describing the town for us, Jackson deliberately mentions a post office, a bank, a school, and a coal business, but does not mention a church- often thought of as a staple in small town America. Mrs. Of the Cross Delacroix throws the first stone at her friend. These biblical references show us Jackson's sense of irony. While the villagers seem to be salt of the earth-type people, they evidently lack religion and morals. 
 Jackson refers to the black box most often throughout "The Lottery": this seemingly innocuous object represents not only death, but also the lottery itself. Jackson tells us what the villagers know of the origin of the black box: 
 "There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black box grew shabbier each year; by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained" (Jackson 134). 
 Like the black box, the lottery tradition is faded, and only contains parts of the original ceremony and meaning. Nonetheless, the villagers willingly and unapologetically participate in the cruel tradition. The black box also represents Jackson's theme of the wickedness of ordinary people. This vessel of death is just a beat up old box that nobody even cares enough to repaint. 
 Of course, the stoning of anybody for no reason is wicked, but there are many other small atrocities depicted throughout "The Lottery." Firstly, we learn that a ritual stoning is right in line with other civic activities like square dances, teen clubs and Halloween programs (Jackson 133). Everyone seems in a hurry to get the lottery over with, not because it is so horrible, not so they can mourn their dead- they just have to return to their everyday work. Lucky for this small town it only takes two hours. The lottery takes days in some of the bigger cities. When some villagers discuss communities that have given up the lottery, Old Man Warner chimes in to say "next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves. . ." (Jackson 136), right- because that would be barbaric. When Tessie originally becomes distressed that her family has drawn the black mark, her husband does not try to comfort her, he tells her to shut up. I understand Tessie's distress, but I do not understand her immediate reaction to throw her older daughter under the bus. Eva, the Hutchinson's married daughter draws with her husband's families; but that does not stop Tessie from trying to have them included in her family. Nancy and Bill, the Hutchinson children, "beam and laugh" (Jackson 138) when they show the crowd their blank papers. Once Tessie is condemned, do her husband and children, hug her, and give her some last parting words of love? Nope! Nothing! Somebody even hands Tessie's youngest son some pebbles to toss at his mother (Jackson 138). 
 The worst part about the townspeople is their normalcy. The women wear nothing more special than "faded house dresses and sweaters" (Jackson 133). Mr. Summers wears "his clean white shirt and blue jeans" (Jackson 134). June 27 is such a normal day that Mrs. Hutchinson "'clean forgot what day it was'" (Jackson 135). Men farm, women do dishes, children go to school. Boys play rowdily, while girls stand by and watch. The only thing separating the fictional villagers from real small town America is the lottery. "she [Jackson] scents the evil in ordinary things." They are not every day murderers or serial killers. They do not have body parts stashed in their refrigerators. Based on the villager's behavior we might think the prize for winning the lottery is a refrigerator (I guess it would be an icebox in the 40s). Jackson definitely "scents the evil in ordinary things" (Breitsprecher). 
 We would like to think we would act differently in a similar situation. But would we? We live in a society capable of war and capital punishment. Breitsprecher even compares the lottery to the draft, where "if your number comes up, you may not be the winner" (Breitsprecher). Unfortunately, I must agree with Shirley Jackson- ordinary people are capable of horrible atrocities, especially if they can be justified or rationalized by revenge, tradition, or our own protection. 
 Works Cited 
 Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth 
 McMahan, Susan Day, Robert Funk, and Linda Coleman. Backpack ed. Boston: 
 Longman, 2011. 133-138. Print. 
 "Biography: Anne Hutchinson." Annehutchinson.com. 7 Oct. 2003. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. 
 Breitsprecher , Christoph. "Analysis and Interpretation of Shirley Jackson`s The Lottery."Publish Your Texts as EBook and Book. Grin Publishing, 2000. Web. 29 Nov. 2012. .