Discussion Literature / TheLottery

For years, (1) I've always enjoyed being in a room full of "Lottery virgins" at the moment they find out exactly what Mrs. Hutchinson has "won" (and even wrote a flash-fiction piece about it, titled "The Fly on the Classroom Wall," and (2) I've always wondered if Ms. Jackson was, ahem, "stoned" when she wrote it.

I cut these lines because I found them to be exceedingly harsh towards Mrs. Hutchinson.

• Asshole Victim: Tessie, who was perfectly happy with the lottery right up until it started to look like she might "win."
• Hypocrite: Tessie's protests that the lottery "isn't right" are somewhat reasonable... if, earlier, she hadn't been perfectly happy to let the lottery proceed as it always has.
• It's All About Me: Tessie is happy to let the Lottery proceed until she thinks it might select her.
• Jerkass Has a Point
  • Tessie is completely correct to insist that what's happening is neither fair not right. She's just wrong about why it's not right.
• Moral Myopia:
  • Tessie seems well and eager to let the lottery proceed as it always has... up until her chances to get stoned to death suddenly become very likely.

All of these taken together are really severe, even malicious - they almost seem to be insisting that Mrs. Hutchinson deserved to die, or act as if the story gave her some kind of special treatment before the Hutchinson family was selected, which it did not.

However, the writer does make a worthwhile point, so... I'm going to condense the ideas expressed here to Alternate Character Interpretation, and make an entry on the YMMV page.