The Lottery

Shirley Jackson, born in San Francisco in 1919, spent most of her early years in Burlingame, California. She was always interested in writing and even won a prize for poetry at the age of twelve. She started college at the University of Rochester but left after a period of depression, that would come back to haunt her throughout her adult life. She later attended Syracuse University; she was able to write for the student literary magazine. She finished her degree and married Stanley Human in 1940. They both had active literary careers and resettled in Vermont where Jackson’s husband taught literature at Bennington College. Their first child was born in 1941; they eventually had four children.

Jackson is best known for her short story “The Lottery.” Some reports say that the setting for the story is the village where she and her family settled, in Vermont. The main character of the story is Mrs. Hutchinson, or “Tessie”. She is a non-descript housewife with no defining characteristics setting her apart from the other women. All of the women in the story are portrayed as subordinate to their husbands; playing a lesser role in the community. This is illustrated, by women who are described as wearing “faded house dress

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