The Lottery By Shirley Jackson
A short story titled The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker; the date was June 26, 1948. The story was submitted by author Shirley Jackson. The Lottery (Tale Blazers: American Literature)
Larry Yust’s film was ranked by the Academic Film Archive “as one of the two bestselling educational films ever”. The Lottery, a film version from 1969, was produced as part of Encyclopædia Britannica’s ‘Short Story Showcase’ series. Later versions of the story would be adapted.
According to Wikipedia: The response to the story was initially negative. Readers canceled subscriptions and sent hate mail throughout the remainder of the summer. The story was even banned in the Union of South Africa.
In the July 22, 1948, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, Jackson offered the following statement in response to persistent queries from her readers about her intentions:
Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story’s readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.
Shirley Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep at the tender age of 48, in 1965. Her story and her works live on.
The Lottery – Part 2
