The Lottery

"Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the sip of paper out of her hand.  It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office." - Shirley Jackson.

For this blog, I am going to formally answer a question included in the text.  The question is this:

What is a "lottery"?  How does the title lead you to expect something very different from what the story presents?

The online dictionary states that a lottery is "a gambling game in which a large number of tickets are sold and a drawing is held for certain prizes."  When I first read the title of the short story, I assumed it was going to be about some kind of game where people might win prizes or other things like that.  As the story progresses, it becomes obvious that this lottery game would not be so exciting.  In the end, the woman who is picked from the lottery gets stoned and dies.  This reminds me of the movie Lottery Ticket in ways other than the death of the winner at the end.  In both this short story and the movie, the winner of the drawing has unfortunate things happen to him or her as a result of winning.  Tessie ends up being stoned.  In Lottery Ticket, Kevin is chased into hiding by his neighbors who all want a chance at taking the ticket.  In both cases, there are regrets after the person has won the lottery.