The Lottery: Point Of View Essay

The short story revolves around a community that undertakes something close to a ritual, but they paraphrase it as Lottery. The main purpose of holding the lottery is to ‘sacrifice’ a person from the community regardless of age or the position they hold. The whole community gathers at a square, and the black box holder chairs the meetup. The black box holds an equal amount of folded papers that represent the number of families in the town. The black box holder calls out each family and they ought to respond. Later, the person looks to check whether all family members were present. Once the exercise is over, one by one, a member of the family most likely the father gets up to pick the paper. He returns with the paper still folded until all other families pick out theirs.
They simultaneously open their papers and reveal their choices. The person with a paper that has a black spot on it moves on to the next stage. The head of the family clarifies the number of children he has, and they all pick the papers from the black box for the second time. The family member with the black spot gets stoned to death. The plot is quite scary since it ends with death, but the main motive of the writer was not to scare people but to tell people of what happened during the time.
In the particular story, the woman of the house got unlucky and said that her family was wrongly chosen. She says that her son was not given enough time to pick out the paper. The sad part of the story is her son was among the stoners quite an unlikely feature for a boy to do to her mother. The author has used various aspects of fiction throughout the story. The writer employs the point of view aspect to put the reader in the situation expressed in the script. It draws a reader to understand a particular situation and put emotions into one’s mind.
Point of view simply expresses the use of first or third person in the narrative. The two point of views creates the various ways each person saw the story. The writer employs the third person point of view in many situations because it draws a better plot of the story. Apart from that, it puts the story on a flat plan where the reader can draw out the whole story on an imaginary sheet of paper. In the end, the writer has a complete plot of the story, from the beginning to the end.
The main aim of such a drawing is to show the reader the loopholes in the story if there is any. Another purpose of it is to understand what the writer wants to achieve in the story and whether his/her ideas came out. The best way to know whether the idea was a success is by looking at the comments received after the publication. The narrative brought about hatred to the author since people had a problem with how she expressed her feelings. The sad ending of the story tells more of why people had a problem with the story.
The introduction of the story draws out the plan through the reader’s point of view. “The morning of June 27th was sunny and clear, with the warmth fresh air on a full summer day; the grass was richly green, and the flowers blossomed profusely. The village people began to gather around the square, located between the bank and the post office, around ten o'clock; in other townspeople were many people reasons why it took the lottery two days beginning on June 26th.” (Jackson par 1). The text introduces the reader to the setting and draws out the plan of the story. It provides a brief background of what the author tries to play out in a fictional way. From the beginning statement, the reader holds himself or herself back waiting for an amazing tale to unfold from the words expressed by the writer. The writer can place the whole scenario in front of them and think of how the world looked at during the time. The writer aids the scenario’s possibility by using simple and direct words like sunny, summer day, ten o’clock among other words.
The writer employs the third person point of view when the lottery begins in the fourth paragraph. “The lottery was conducted incorporation with the teen club, square dances, and the Halloween program controlled by Mr. Summers, a person with energy and time to devote himself to civic activities. Round-faced, jovial man who ran the coal business. Because he lacked a wife and children, his wife was a scold. He arrived at the square, carrying the black wooden box on his hands, there was a murmuring coming from the villagers, and he waved at them and called. "Little late today, people."” (Jackson par 3)
In the context, the writer brings out Mr. Summer in his true self. He gives the person life and describes who he is and what the people of the community think of him. Another thing the writer shows is the way people in the community love to gossip. Gossip is a common thing in any community.
“The villagers stayed a distance from him, leaving a space between them and the stool. Then Mr. Summers said, "Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?" there was hesitation between two men.” (Jackson par 4) The context changes the point of view of first person. It brings out Mr. Summers point of view. He has the box at hand a no one seems to care whether the load is heavy or not. They all distant themselves from the box till Mr. Summers requests one of them to help him set the box on top of the stool. Using Mr. Summers as a point of view, the writer tries to achieve two things in the story. The first thing is people do not love the lottery because they try as much as possible to stay away from it. The second thing is people seem to dislike Mr. Summers. He might be a bad omen to them if anyone tried to help him in any way. Through the whole lottery occasion affects the community at large, people tend to narrow it down to the beholder of the black box.
The writer brings about another history of the lottery using a third person point of view. “And the black box now rest on the stool. The box had been put into use way before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, got born. Mr. Summers frequently spoke to the villagers about making a new box, but no one loved to upset him, even though, the black box represented their tradition. A story says that the present box was made with pieces of the box which had preceded it, the first one ever created when the first people settled here to make a village.” (Jackson par 7)
The writer uses two people in the context to bring out the picture; the old man, Mr. Warner and Mr. Summers. The different points of view express the past of the box. It shows how it evolved to what it is currently, and what keeps it from retaining its original condition. The aim of the point of view was to continue the story and give it life. The story would be flat if the writer only focused on the box happenings without expressing what happens to the crowd. The writer also directs the reader to notice how important the box is to the community and make them wonder how such a small thing could bring about change to the community.
The writer uses the first person point of view to draw out the Mrs. Hutchinson way of life and express the behavior of similar people in any community. “Thought my old man was at the pouch stacking wood," Mrs. Hutchinson went on, "when I looked out the window, the kids were gone, then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and quickly came running." She dried her hands on an apron she wore, and Mrs. Delacroix said, "You're in time, however. They're still talking up there." (Jackson par 12)
In the context, the writer draws out the normal behavior of a left out person in the community. It is a common occurrence for people to be late for important meetings, such as in this case. In the context, the writer also tries to give a current plot of who Mrs. Hutchinson is and what sets her apart from any other person in the crowd. From the expressions so far, the writer is in a position to draw out the main characters in the story. At the particular moment, the story feels halfway between the start and the climax of the story and the readers gets to anticipate what would happen next.
The writer employs a dialog in the third person point of view between three people in the plot. “He asked, "Watson boy drawing this year?" Then a tall boy raised his hand in the crowd. "Here," he said. "I'm drawing for my mother and me." He blinked his eyes repeatedly and ducked his head as he passed several people in the crowd said thin#s like "Good fellow, lack." and "Glad to see your mother has got a man who can do it."” (Jackson par 18).
The purpose of the dialog is to draw out the plan of the movie in the reader's head. It helps them understand what happens between arguments. If the writer drew out a general point of view, then there would be issues that the reader must have felt while reading the context. The emotional aspect of the story would be dead since the general point of view is flat. The writer brings out the character of the young boy, Watson. From the context, the boy comes from a single parent family; a similarity with what currently is now. The writer expresses true-life scenarios in the text through the incorporation of various types of families. The move shows that the writer knows how to play around with the plot to make it relatable to what happens in real life.
The various points of view expressed in the plot helps the reader to get closer to the story. Writing down a narratives plot form a general view loses the feel of sense to the reader. The plot would feel flat and uninteresting to follow up. The same criteria fall into the film industry; where the director brings out different points of view to engage the audience the best way possible.

Work Cited

Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. 1948 Web. 18 Feb. 2015 <http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf.>