The drawing of lots is a time-honored method for settling disputes and determining rights. It was common in the Roman Empire (Nero loved it) and is attested to in the Bible, where it was used for everything from choosing kings to deciding who got to keep Jesus’ clothes after his crucifixion. In the early seventeenth century, colonial America embraced lotteries as a way to raise money for towns and wars, as well as colleges and public-works projects.
As Cohen explains, state politicians saw the lottery as a budgetary miracle. By selling tickets with an ever-dwindling chance of winning a huge sum, states could collect hundreds of millions of dollars a year without raising taxes or incurring voters’ wrath. The gamblers, for their part, bought tickets with the expectation that they would win.
In the end, though, the odds of winning became even worse and Americans grew weary of paying for the dream of riches. During the late seventies and eighties, income inequality widened, pensions and job security declined, health-care costs rose, and our long-standing national promise that education and hard work would make us richer than our parents became less true for most of the population.
In The Lottery, Shirley Jackson uses characterization methods such as setting and actions to show that people are deceitful by nature. She also uses the story to point out how humankind’s hypocrisy and evil nature affect the world.