Social Conformity and Exclusion in The Lottery and Other Stories
The following is an excerpt from our The Lottery and Other Stories Student Study Companion. It also forms a part of our VCE English Teaching Resources Pack.
Contextual understanding of Shirley Jackson’s life and times is essential for understanding the significance of her stories, particularly when considering her commentary on society. Written soon after World War II, when America was concerned with maintaining social cohesion and stability, Jackson’s stories are often set in suburban towns that act as microcosms of white middle-class America. Also important to understanding Jackson’s central concerns is America’s increasing fear of communism, driven by the Cold War. At the time of publishing, fear of communist infiltration was widespread, resulting in increased social conformity as Americans attempted to prove their allegiance to the US. With this arose paranoia at a community level, where anyone who appeared different was subject to suspicion and judgement. Thus, Jackson’s stories frequently explore the impact of social conformity on individuals and communities.
Rather than suggesting that conformity is imposed on communities by those in power, Jackson presents it as something driven by ordinary people who appear to value belonging above morality. In her stories, strict social expectations perpetuate prejudice and increase the fear of losing status. In ‘The Flower Garden’, Jackson presents Mrs Winning as a protagonist primarily concerned with belonging and status. Having married into “the oldest family in town”, she has worked tirelessly to uphold a perfectly curated life that might “resemble some stylized block print for a New England wallpaper”. In the permanence of this imagery, Jackson confirms that maintaining the appearance of domestic perfection drives Mrs Winning’s life. Though Mrs Winning judges with “a quick wonderful relief” newcomer Mrs MacLane to be socially acceptable enough to befriend, Jackson soon unravels the social niceties of their relationship when Mrs MacLane hires an African American man, Mr Jones, to work in her garden. Consequently, the town’s mostly covert racism swiftly ostracises the MacLanes, soon jeopardising Mrs Winning’s own place in the community by association. Mrs Winning’s prioritisation of her own position over friendship becomes evident when, instinctively recognising that “something bad has happened” to shift the community’s view of her, she determines to “state her position with finality” and re-establish her social dominance by betraying her friend, insinuating that Mrs MacLane’s relationship with Mr Jones is intimate. This cements the ostracisation of Mrs MacLane, who soon capitulates to “go back to the city”. Mrs Winning’s symbolic physical rejection of Mrs MacLane when walking “with great dignity” away from her back toward the Winning house confirms Jackson’s view that social rejection is generated by the attitudes of ordinary people who seek to keep their own position in society secure.
Jackson also scrutinises a society that readily conforms to expectations without critical thought, especially when it only perpetuates injustice and cruelty. Where Mrs Winning consciously chooses to conform to social expectations to ensure her security, the villagers in ‘The Lottery’ show no such decision-making. Despite the obvious brutality of the lottery, the townspeople treat it as routine, justifying their continuation of the ritual killing with: “there’s always been a lottery”. However, through the ironic presentation of the town as ordinary, Jackson suggests that social corruption comes from the individuals who make up the society, and that it cannot be predicted by outward appearances. The power of conformity becomes evident as Jackson reveals that there is little understanding of the purpose of the lottery as “so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded”, yet the villagers continue to willingly participate without question. The vicious horror of how the community proceeds to stone Tessie Hutchinson bluntly pronounces how following tradition has overridden compassion or moral judgement. Jackson makes this particularly jarring through the readiness of the children, who “had stones already” before the adults reached for theirs. There is no hesitation from the villagers when Mrs Hutchinson “desperately” tries to protect herself, and her repeated screams that “it isn’t right” are ignored, indicating that they have no moral qualms about their actions, or any sense of right and wrong at all. As “the villagers [move] in on her” as a single unit, Jackson highlights how group conformity can remove individual responsibility, allowing people to commit great cruelty without hesitation. Considering that the story was written in the late 1940s, so soon after the horrors of World War II had been revealed, Jackson’s dystopian narrative provides a warning to readers of how terror can emerge from ordinary societies when uniformity and tradition are valued above all else.
In many of her stories, Jackson also gives significant focus to how transgression from social norms results in exclusion and isolation. In ‘The Renegade’, Jackson exposes the treatment of an outsider in a new rural community who does not conform to its insular expectations, and the title itself insinuates that anyone who defies these norms is labelled as a threat. Jackson identifies the town’s parochialism by quickly building a sense of isolation around Mrs Walpole. Answering an early-morning phone call “reluctantly” and “forbiddingly”, her hesitancy to engage with the community is immediately evident. As the central conflict is introduced – Lady, the Walpoles’ dog, is accused of killing chickens – Jackson reveals that the Walpoles have been repeatedly made to feel inadequate by not knowing the unspoken rules of the community. Mrs Walpole concedes that “they are people who own a chicken-killing dog, people who washed on Tuesday, people who were not able to fend for themselves”, and in the anaphora of her words, Jackson indicates that their transgressions have been, and will continue to be, ongoing. It becomes clear to the reader that the community’s determination to punish Lady parallels their disapproval of Mrs Walpole for her own social breaches, and as the story ends, Mrs Walpole feels herself wearing the spiked collar that her children describe as a way to kill Lady. The violent imagery of “the harsh hands pulling her down, the sharp points closing in on her throat” symbolises the restrictive threat that faces her if she continues to stay as an interloper in the community. The exclusion of outsiders is also conveyed through symbolism in ‘The Flower Garden’, where Jackson uses the decay of Mrs MacLane’s once “promising rich” garden to show how Mrs MacLane cannot sustain a life in a town riddled with intolerance: as the heat of summer intensifies, analogous to the town’s mounting rejection, it “bake[s] away the vivacity” of the garden. This culminates in a storm that “sweeps without pity”, and Mrs MacLane’s garden is destroyed, just as her hopes for an idyllic garden cottage life are destroyed by the pitiless townsfolk. Thus, Jackson’s characters who do not conform often find themselves secluded and defeated, sometimes in terrifying situations, and unable to thrive in provincial America.
In the grim and sometimes shocking resolutions of her stories, Jackson criticises a society which values blind conformity over individuality and moral integrity. By relentlessly exposing social behaviours that exclude and punish difference, Jackson’s stories challenge readers to examine the constructs of their own society and consider what is most important.
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