In this short story, details of contemporary small-town American life are embroidered upon a recounting of an annual event known as “the lottery.”
A lottery is a competition based on chance, in which numbered tickets are sold for a prize, typically money. The winner is selected at random. Lotteries have been used since ancient times to distribute property, such as land, slaves, and other commodities. They can also be used to award sporting events, academic scholarships, or military honors.
The earliest European lotteries in the modern sense of the word appear in the 15th century, with towns holding public lotteries to raise funds for town defenses and to aid the poor. The name of the game is probably from the Dutch word lot, which may be a diminutive of a Middle High German form of the word Lotteria (perhaps derived from Latin sortilegij), which was used for the casting of lots in the Middle Ages.
The people in the village are aware that they’re taking a big risk, but they’ve convinced themselves that they’ve a chance at winning. They have all sorts of quote-unquote systems, backed up by statistical reasoning that’s not really there, about lucky numbers and lucky stores and the time of day to buy tickets. And they’re willing to spend $50, $100 a week on tickets. They’ve just come to the logical conclusion that, for better or worse, their only chance at a new life is the lottery.