In Shirley Jackson’s famous short story “The Lottery,” Tessie Hutchinson is the central character who is chosen in the annual lottery and subsequently stoned to death by the townspeople. As the unfortunate “winner” of the lottery, Tessie comes to symbolize several key themes in the story related to society’s tendency towards meaningless traditions, scapegoating, and the dangers of blindly following rituals without questioning their purpose or morality.
Tessie Represents Resistance to Tradition
When Tessie arrives late to the lottery gathering, she challenges the procedure by saying “Clean forgot what day it was” and “Thought my old man was out back stacking wood.” While the other villagers quietly fall in line, Tessie resists tradition and tries to buck the system. She argues against the unfairness of the lottery system as she sees that her husband Bill drew the marked slip of paper. Tessie’s resistance demonstrates her independent spirit and refusal to conform to traditions without good cause.
However, once Tessie herself is chosen as the “winner” of the lottery, she shifts from resisting tradition to desperately clinging to it. She insists the drawing was not conducted fairly and demands it be redone. Tessie urges the villagers to stick to the proper ritual so there is no doubt things were done “right.” Her flip-flop attitude underscores how individuals may object to traditions in the abstract but desperately cling to them when their own lives or interests are on the line.
Overall Tessie symbolizes the ambivalent relationship many have with established traditions. People may complain about rituals that seem outdated, but fear changing or abolishing those customs when their security or fortunes depend on preserving the status quo.
Tessie Represents the Scapegoat
As the unlucky “winner” of the lottery, Tessie becomes a scapegoat for the village. The lottery and subsequent stoning is implied to be an annual ritual believed to ensure a good harvest. By collectively killing a random villager, the rest of the townspeople aim to purge any wrongdoing that may taint their community and appease whatever spirits or gods control their fates. Tessie essentially becomes a sacrifice, arbitrarily chosen to bear the sins and punishments meant for the whole village.
Scapegoating Tessie allows the other villagers to avoid blame or self-reflection. Nobody considers whether the annual lottery ritual truly brings them good fortune, or if there are more ethical ways for them to take responsibility for their own lives and future. Instead they pin everything on Tessie and gain reassurance from mindlessly following tradition.
As an ordinary townswoman who did nothing wrong, Tessie highlights the injustice and immorality of scapegoating. Her death accomplishes nothing for the village aside from upholding a brutal tradition founded on superstition. Tessie’s targeting as the scapegoat demonstrates how communities often victimize harmless individuals by making them bear the group’s collective sins and punishment.
Tessie Represents the Victim of Mob Mentality
Although Tessie initially opposed the lottery procedure, once she becomes its victim, all her protests fall on deaf ears. The other villagers refuse to empathize with her, instead turning into a mob that collectively stones her to death. This shows how crowds can be swept up in violent groupthink once they perceive someone as an acceptable target for their anger and bloodlust.
Tessie underscores how individual ethics and humanity often break down in mobs or crowds. Alone, few if any townspeople would advocate stoning an innocent woman to death. But stirred into a emotive mass by tradition and collective force, they abandon reason and ethics to brutally kill Tessie. The speed with which the villagers turn on her demonstrates the dangerous psychology of mobs and the fragility of human ethics when overriding social pressures come into play.
Through Tessie’s cruel fate, the story suggests that much human violence depends more on having a scapegoat than any true justice or moral rightness. When a mob coalesces around a target, individual dissent becomes almost impossible—as highlighted by the few villagers who whispered objections to the stoning but didn’t dare intervene once the crowd turned against Tessie.
Tessie Represents the Victim of Domestic Abuse
Critics have analyzed “The Lottery” as an allegory for domestic violence and the inability of women to protect themselves from abuse within marriage. Tessie’s husband Bill forces her to select the marked slip, even though she protests that he should run his own hand through the box. This demonstrates the powerlessness wives faced in patriarchal family structures.
Once Tessie is chosen for the lottery, her husband and son stone her along with the rest of the villagers. Her own family turns against her and becomes complicit in her abuse and death. This underscores the lack of protection and support networks for victims of domestic violence within isolated communities.
Seen in this light, Tessie symbolizes women trapped in abusive marriages and unable to escape violence committed against them within the “lottery” of the family unit. Her meaningless death underscores the systemic misogyny and entrenched patriarchy that perpetuated women’s oppression and victimization.
Tessie Represents Outsider Status
In the beginning of “The Lottery,” Tessie arrives late and laughs about forgetting the date of the lottery. This separates her from the other villagers who solemnly took part in the annual tradition. Tessie’s outsider status is further hinted at when the townspeople talk about her home being just outside the main part of town.
As an outsider who didn’t dutifully memorize the lottery date like everyone else, Tessie represents nonconformity and skepticism about established traditions. Her punishment may symbolize how those who flout conventions or think independently are often scapegoated by more zealous community members. The villagers’ animosity towards Tessie could stem in part from her status as an outsider who challenges their traditions.
Persecuting Tessie allows the mob to vent their fear and distrust of nonconformists who don’t follow traditions in lockstep with everyone else. Shirley Jackson suggests here that societies often punish those who dissent or seem alien to preserve conformity and social order at all costs.
Tessie Represents Helplessness
From the moment Tessie arrives late to the lottery till her death at the hands of the mob, she has essentially no agency or ability to control her fate. First, her husband Bill forces her to draw from the lottery box against her will. Then in protesting her selection as the lottery “winner,” she is helpless to change the mob’s intent on stoning her to death.
Tessie’s lack of power over her destiny emphasizes how individuals often have little control over social forces and rituals like the lottery that channel collective action. Once chosen, Tessie can do nothing to protect herself from the unjust persecution of the mob. This underscores the helplessness of any scapegoat singled out by a community’s bloodlust.
Through Tessie’s hopeless pleas and the indifference of the villagers towards her, Shirley Jackson conveys how social customs and hierarchies strip away power and agency from unsuspecting individuals. Tessie represents how we are all ultimately helpless against the unpredictable whims of the crowd.
Conclusion
As the central victim in “The Lottery,” Tessie Hutchinson comes to symbolize critical themes related to the dangers of blind obedience to tradition, scapegoating, mob mentality, and the fragility of human ethics when confronted by powerful social conformism. Her resistance turned helplessness in the face of the murderous crowd represents humanity’s tendency to victimize harmless individuals through arbitrary rituals and communal acts of evil.
Shirley Jackson uses Tessie and her undeserved persecution to highlight innate cruelties and the dangers of tradition for tradition’s sake in any society. Her troubling yet thought-provoking story forces readers to consider how they might act if part of a real-life lottery, and to question why age-old customs so often rely on random violence against innocents. Through Tessie’s tragic symbolic role, Jackson sounds a warning about unexamined traditions and conformity gone terribly wrong.
Key Facts About Tessie Hutchinson
- She arrives late to the lottery gathering, having forgotten the date
- Challenges the lottery procedure until she becomes the victim
- Selected when her husband Bill forces her hand to draw the marked paper slip
- Protests her selection and demands the lottery be re-done properly
- Helpless to prevent the mob from collectively stoning her to death
- Represents rebellion against conformity and blind obedience to tradition
- Becomes a scapegoat to purge supposed “sins” from the village
- Demonstrates the danger of mob mentality overriding ethics
- Symbolizes persecution of nonconformists and outsiders
- Underscores the helplessness of individuals against powerful social forces
Critical Analyses of Tessie Hutchinson’s Symbolic Role
Here are some key interpretations from literary critics about the potent symbolism of Tessie’s character and barbaric fate in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”:
Tessie as Questioner of Tradition
Critic Claire Connors notes how Tessie vocalizes questions and objections to the lottery ritual before falling victim to it. Her last-minute arrival and quips about her husband getting wood underscore her reluctance toward and lack of reverence for the town’s annual tradition. Connors argues Tessie serves as a warning example against questioning traditions or arriving unprepared to important social gatherings.
Tessie as Victim of Mob Rule
Scholar Joseph Fargnoli sees Tessie as demonstrating the horror of how calm, rational people can turn to frightening mob cruelty when caught up in tradition and groupthink. Her stoning shows how conformity and peer pressure subvert moral codes so that compassionate individuals become capable of violence against the vulnerable.
Tessie as Symbol of Misogynistic Domestic Abuse
Feminist critic Elaine Hedges argues Tessie represents women victimized by misogynistic social rituals condoned within the family structure. Her husband forces her to draw the marked paper slip and then stones her along with the mob. Tessie symbolizes the victimization of women within unjust patriarchal traditions.
Tessie as Marginalized Outsider
Analyzing Tessie’s outsider status living on the town borders, scholar Allen Lloyd-Smith proposes she represents marginalization of those who don’t fully integrate into a community and its rituals. Her punishment demonstrates that nonconformists perceived as outsiders face risks of being scapegoated or persecuted by the fearful majority.
These examples demonstrate some scholarly perspectives on how Tessie may symbolize broader themes within “The Lottery” related to dangerous traditions, mob mentality, gender inequality, and the persecution of outsiders. Her character catalyzes the story’s disturbing themes regarding human cruelty and subversion of ethics.
Examining Key Quotes About Tessie Hutchinson
Analyzing quotes related to Tessie Hutchinson provides deeper insight into her symbolic role as victim in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”
“Thought my old man was out back stacking wood, then!” Tessie said finally, with laughter.”
Tessie’s dismissive comment about arriving late highlights her casual irreverence toward the important town lottery tradition.
“Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.”
Tessie tries to deflect her fate onto her husband when he draws the marked slip, revealing desperation to avoid becoming the lottery victim.
“It wasn’t fair!” she said.
Tessie complains about the lottery process after she is selected, though she did not object earlier when not a potential victim herself.
“Bill, Jr., and Nancy next made a huge pile of stones in the corner of the square…”
The participation of Tessie’s own family in stoning her demonstrates the loss of loved ones’ compassion due to mob mentality.
These quotes underscore Tessie’s progression from laughing outsider to desperate victim when confronted with the lottery’s sacrificial violence. Her own words reveal how quickly social pressure and cruelty can silence a dissenting voice.
Analyzing Tessie’s Death
The stoning of Tessie Hutchinson is the climax of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Analyzing how and why Tessie was murdered provides insight into her ultimate symbolic meaning. Consider the following:
The swiftness of the mob violence:
In just moments, the villagers grab stones and turn on Tessie in a frenzy of aggression. This highlights how easily tradition and conformity provoke human brutality.
The participation of her family members:
Even Tessie’s own husband and children throw stones, demonstrating how cult mentality corrupts human bonds and morality.
The lack of resistance from Tessie:
Despite her earlier objections, Tessie does not fight back and succumbs to her fate, underscoring an individual’s helplessness against the collective power of a mob.
The absence of remorse from villagers:
After killing Tessie, everyone leaves calmly and goes about their day, revealing the normalization of violence in the name of tradition.
These aspects of Tessie’s swift, brutal death at the hands of her own neighbors and family members reveal the deepest themes about human nature that Jackson conveys through the symbolism of “the lottery.”
Discussion Questions
Here are some discussion questions about Tessie Hutchinson’s role in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”:
- Why does Tessie arrive late to the lottery gathering? What might this signify about her attitude toward the tradition?
- How and why does Tessie resist the lottery before she becomes the victim? Why does she then protest and insist the process be done fairly?
- What does Bill forcing Tessie to draw the marked slip against her will suggest about gender relations and power dynamics in the village?
- Why does no one speak up to defend or rescue Tessie from the mob that stones her? What might this say about human psychology?
- How does Tessie’s dialogue and actions shift from the beginning to the end of the story? What changes within her and why?
- Do you see Tessie as an innocent victim or partially responsible in some ways for her fate? Explain your viewpoint.
Discussing these prompts can uncover deeper perspectives on Tessie as a complex character and multifaceted symbol within this influential short story.
Conclusion
In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, Tessie Hutchinson serves as a provocative central character who comes to symbolize the victimization of individuals at the hands of cruel traditions and irrational mob mentality. Her progression from resistant outsider to helpless scapegoat underscores the story’s themes related to pointless rituals, conformity, mob psychology, and the potential for violence that underlies even the most ordinary communities. Studying Tessie’s words and actions provides critical insight into Jackson’s bleak commentary on human nature through this iconic and unsettling tale.
