The Lottery

Old, splintered, and fading, the black-painted box rests on a three-legged stool. It has been used at the lottery since before the oldest villager was born; the people believe parts of the box were taken from its predecessor, the original lottery box. In a horror story, such an unbroken physical chain symbolizes a link to past evil. The box’s black color also hints at a dark purpose. Into the box go slips of folded paper; one of these slips contains a mark; whichever household pulls that slip makes it to the final drawing; whichever family member pulls the marked slip during the second draw “wins” and gets stoned to death. 

The lottery box contains slips of folded paper. All of these are blank save one, which has a large, black dot inscribed in pencil. Heads of household pull one folded paper each; whoever picks the one with the black dot must have his family perform a second draw, and whoever among them pulls the black-dot paper is doomed. The papers’ blankness suggests the simplicity of the lottery; the emptiness implies a mindless obedience to a tradition long followed but now perhaps meaningless. The black dot speaks of the death that meets its possessor.