The Lottery

     In "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, I felt there was quite a bit of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony takes place when there is a discrepancy between the reader's understanding of a scene and a character's understanding. Throughout almost the entire story I had a completely different understanding of what a lottery is than the characters did. I assumed it was the lottery involving money. I thought the town made such a fuss over it because it is exciting in a small town to see who the "big winner" is. However, I soon realized I was completely wrong. I am never one to see events coming in a story, so I really did not realize it was not a modern-day lottery until they came out and said that a Hutchinson would be stoned. The characters in the play knew the entire time what was going to happen; they were never confused, like myself. They weren't so much excited as they were nervous or anxious to find out who the "winner" was. I even interpreted minor events in the story differently than what the characters were actually doing. When discussing the children, the author writes, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones" (264). I thought this was some sort of children's game, like they were going to play marbles or something. I had no idea they were collecting the stones that would soon kill a citizen. This entire story had me very confused.