Yasir Alzahrani
Professor C Flanigan
ENGL 1010 K
2/3/2016
Essay 1
The Lottery: Gender Roles and Differences The lottery is a disturbing short story by Shirley Jackson. The story depicts a small, unnamed American town of about 300 people. The people of the town all gather together in the middle of the village and the ominous story begins with children collecting stones and making a pile in the middle of the square. The men enter next and then the women. All the families come together. Mr. Summers is the person who runs the lottery and he arrives to the square with a black box in his hands. He gives the box to Mr. Graves, who is the postmaster. The box is full of slips of paper. Tessie Hutchinson is depicted to have joined in late to the crowd, as she had forgotten that it was the day of the lottery. Next, Mr. Summers announces the rules of the lottery. Every person from the head of the family would draw a piece of paper and no one is going to look at the …show more content…
The women are depicted as being inferior to the men in the social power structure. This can be seen when Mrs. Hutchinson’s family is chosen in the first round. Even though she protests that her daughter and son-in-law had not drawn a ticket yet, Mr. Summers tells her that “daughters draw for their husbands families.” This again shows that the society had put much more importance on the man in which the woman marries into. Moreover, we find that that when the lottery is drawn, the community can be heard asking questions, such as “Who is it? Who s got it? Is it the Dunbars? Is it the Watsons?” The reason why they are taking these names is because Mr. Watson is dead and Mr. Dunbar has broken his leg. Since both the males and the heads of the families are not able to work, it means that the families are considered as weak. The women in the family do not
Professor C Flanigan
ENGL 1010 K
2/3/2016
Essay 1
The Lottery: Gender Roles and Differences The lottery is a disturbing short story by Shirley Jackson. The story depicts a small, unnamed American town of about 300 people. The people of the town all gather together in the middle of the village and the ominous story begins with children collecting stones and making a pile in the middle of the square. The men enter next and then the women. All the families come together. Mr. Summers is the person who runs the lottery and he arrives to the square with a black box in his hands. He gives the box to Mr. Graves, who is the postmaster. The box is full of slips of paper. Tessie Hutchinson is depicted to have joined in late to the crowd, as she had forgotten that it was the day of the lottery. Next, Mr. Summers announces the rules of the lottery. Every person from the head of the family would draw a piece of paper and no one is going to look at the …show more content…
The women are depicted as being inferior to the men in the social power structure. This can be seen when Mrs. Hutchinson’s family is chosen in the first round. Even though she protests that her daughter and son-in-law had not drawn a ticket yet, Mr. Summers tells her that “daughters draw for their husbands families.” This again shows that the society had put much more importance on the man in which the woman marries into. Moreover, we find that that when the lottery is drawn, the community can be heard asking questions, such as “Who is it? Who s got it? Is it the Dunbars? Is it the Watsons?” The reason why they are taking these names is because Mr. Watson is dead and Mr. Dunbar has broken his leg. Since both the males and the heads of the families are not able to work, it means that the families are considered as weak. The women in the family do not