The Lottery

“The Lottery” would pose as a lens into human society. Analyzing the short story would allow the martians to make inferences about the human person, human community life, and human traditions. When reading this story, the martians will have an insight on the human person such as the spectra of human emotion and their attire. The Lottery addresses different parts of the human emotion including happiness, humor, loyalty, disloyalty, nervousness, and fear. The beginning of the story starts off in a congenial atmosphere where families are gathering together and laughing and smiling—showing signs of happiness and humor. The traits of loyalty and disloyalty are shown through comments made. Mrs. Hutchinson shows a form of disloyalty to her family by putting her daughter in the lottery to decrease her own chances of dying. She says, “ There’s Don and Eva… Make them take their chance.” Other communities that are giving up the lottery are disloyal to the traditions. Old Man Warner shows his disapproval by calling them a “pack of young fools.” Signs of nervousness and fear are shown as the story progresses. The townsfolk are hesitant to approach the black box, the men are holding the lottery ticket in their hand and “turning them over and over nervously.” When Tessie Hutchinson’s name gets called for the lottery, she shows fear by clenching on to the lottery ticket in her hand and screaming when she found out she was going to die. As far as attire goes, if Martians read this story, they would think that all women wore faded house dresses, sweaters, and aprons as described. Along with giving the Martian insight on the human person, this story also gives the Martian information about communities, their environment, their facilities and structure. Jackson described the weather and environment in the beginning of the story, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly