Written by: nukrolat
Shirley Jackson’s own life has serious effects on her writings, especially on “The Lottery.” Her early life was not a peaceful one. She preferred to stay in her room and write poetry rather than go outside and play with other children.
Her college life was not great either because she dropped out and was put in a mental institute. After she was released from there her married life started. Shirley married in 1940 to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a Jewish intellectual whom encouraged her rebellion. He also encouraged her to become a severe critic who smoked too much, ate too much, and used drugs. In The Lottery, a woman –Ms. Hutchinson- finally attempts to rebel against the seemingly normal stoning when she is chosen to be stoned. This may be connected to Jackson’s rebellion against her parents encouraged by her husband. The woman’s rebellion in The Lottery, ends in her death. This could be related with Jackson’s involvement with drugs, smoking, and food due to her encouraging husband.
After the wedding, Shirley and her husband moved to Vermont. They had four children. In an interview with the editors of Twentieth Century Authors magazine she summarizes her life:
I was born in San Francisco in 1919 and spent most of my early life in California. I was married in 1940 to Stanley Edgar Hyman, critic and numismatist, and we live in Vermont, in a quiet rural community with fine scenery and comfortably far away from city life. Our major exports are books and children, both of which we produce in abundance. The children are Laurence, Joanne, Sarah and Carry: my books include three novels, The Road Through The Wall, Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, and a collection of short stories, The Lottery. Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children. (1)
What she thinks about Vermont and her life in Vermont could affect her writings. Especially the setting in The Lottery suits this description very well: A quite rural community, far from city life and children.
While living in Vermont, Jackson continued to write. One of her earliest times in Vermont later became material for her first book about the family, Life Among the Savages. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, followed in 1948. But it was with the publication of The Lottery in “The New Yorker” in August that year, that she began to gain her reputation. Kyla Ward comments on the story that:
For those who have not encountered The Lottery, ( The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock - remember?), I refuse to give it away. Suffice to say that it is about a lottery and isolated country town of the type we all know exists, and have usually driven through with an uneasy feeling about what would happen if the car broke down. (2)
The Lottery brought fame as well as letters from people all over the country who felt she had lost contact with reality. The letters were often abusive letters from people who did not understand her motives or what she did. Kyla Ward, watching the reactions closely, says that:
The New Yorker was besieged with letters for weeks afterwards, some protesting about the 'violent' and pointless story, some praising the brilliant moral allegory, but most demanding to know what it meant. When asked herself, Ms Jackson is reported to have said, 'well, really it's just a story. (3)
Her motives can be explained by the hostility of the villagers in the story and the ones Shirley lived with. She wrote this book after some school children pelted her with stones while she was going home. The short story can be related to her life in many ways. One way is Jackson takes pain to describe a village of hard-working, upstanding Americans to her insane life of mental illnesses, arthritis. Moreover, the normal activities that took place in The Lottery were the “square dances, the teenage club and the Halloween program” is symbolism to her getting married and having children like ordinary people. The Lottery also took place in a rural area just like where Jackson lived when she wrote it.
Oehlschlaeger explains about another point that The Lottery can be related to Jackson’s life experience:
The name of Jackson's victim links her to Anne Hutchinson, whose Antinomian beliefs, found to be heretical by the Puritan hierarchy, resulted in her banishment from Massachusetts in 1638. While Tessie Hutchinson is no spiritual rebel, to be sure, Jackson's allusion to Anne Hutchinson reinforces her suggestions of a rebellion lurking within the women of her imaginary village. (4)
Lynette Carpenter explains that most of Jackson’s women protagonists have almost the same features as Shirley Jackson. In this way, it is again appropriate to assume that her literary works are other versions of her life:
In fiction, she writes most often about women. The typical Jackson protagonist is a lonely young woman struggling toward maturity. She is a social misfit, not beautiful enough, charming enough, or articulate enough to get along ill with other people, too introverted and awkward. In short, she does not fit any of the feminine stereotypes available to her. In the end, very few of her protagonists achieve much of a victory over oppression. Indeed most of Jackson's protagonists are emotionally violated and must struggle desperately to overcome their estrangement and dislocation, and most of them fail. (5)
Ms. Hutchinson in The Lottery is an example of Jackson’s common protagonists. She is an ordinary house woman with no special feature that separates her from other women. In the end of the story she fells into a deep fear and with the help of this feeling she rebels against the tradition.
In conclusion, it is clear that The Lottery was written by Shirley Jackson with the inspiration of her own life. Because she was not so willing to say, why she used her life for her writings is a mystery.