The Lottery

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females do, “exchang[ing] bits of gossip.” The men are being average males by chatting about boring day-to-day tasks like “planting and rain, tractors and taxes.”
Despite this comfortable and normal setting, there are hints of the town’s unusualness that foreshadow a surprise ending. For example, is being held “around ten o’clock” in the morning, which is an unusual time because in most towns all the adults would be working during mid-morning. In addition, the author mentions a bank and post office as key buildings surrounding the town square, but what about a church or courthouse? Surely these two buildings would also be in any traditional town square! is compared to the town’s celebration of Halloween, not a joyous celebration such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day-- but a rather dark, surreal, spooky, grotesque, and ominous holiday.
The reader is told that school has let out for the summer, and yet the “feeling of liberty sits uneasily” with the children- which is ...

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