A Simple Symbol

By: A. Grace C.

((Author’s Note: This is a short response to the story, “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson. This is about the different symbols in the story and what they mean.))

A simple symbol can mean something big. In the short story, “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, has symbols that are easy to catch. Like the black box, the big stone, the balk dotted card, and the main one, the lottery. What do these symbols mean? Let’s start at the beginning; with the lottery.

The lottery is a game of chance and for this small village of 300, it means life or death. The lottery by definition is; a means of raising money by selling numbered tickets and giving prizes to the holders of numbers drawn at random. Though the second definition fits much better with this story; a process or thing whose success or outcome is governed by chance: "the lottery of life". In the village, if you ‘win’ the lottery, you are killed. This chance is fated by a black dotted card. If you choose the slip with the black ink dot on it, you are stoned to death.

The small black dot on the card is held with many other slips, but all white ones. These are held by a very old, small black box. This box represents the chance of death. All because it holds a simple card that has a simple meaning, but a large outcome. When Tessie pulls out the black dotted card, she is to be stoned with no questions asked. Though she protests how unfair the lottery was and it’s humanity, no one is listening because the government is telling them everything they know, and that is all they know. But a friend did come through for Tessie.

Mrs. Delacroix and Tessie are very good friends and a big stone that had to be picked up with two hands, showed that. She killed her friend quickly so that she wouldn’t go through too much pain. Mrs. Delacroix did not want to see her friend suffer from a tradition. This was a big stone, small symbol, yet it meant something deeper than, “I’m just going to kill her quick.”

So friendship, death, and chance; the three main meanings of only some of the symbols in the story, yet they show us a lot. Mrs. Delacroix has a strong friendship and even death couldn’t stand in the way. But think about today’s society and about Shirley Jackson’s reason for writing this story. Is today really different form then?