Voices of Protest - F Band Class

Power: "The Lottery" and The Handmaid's Tale

“The Lottery” is Shirley Jackson’s way of sounding an alarm. It is like saying “watch out for how oblivious you are to your surroundings and intricate webs of control around you because one day, when you least expect it, you will be the innocent bystander.” Except what Shirley is saying is very similar to what Margaret Atwood is saying—no one has the right to complain or get angry at being the victim, as Tessie did, because they, by their ignorance and apathy, are not innocent bystanders, they are the cause of their own misery, unless they consciously fought against the system. Undoubtedly, Shirley Jackson was concerned about the structure of a capitalistic society and how that affects the ones with the least power, but the overarching message of the story is that nothing happens to people, they allow it to happen or do it to themselves.

“The Lottery,” and The Handmaid’s Tail are two works that use two different metaphors to illustrate the same ideas about who wants power, why, how it is attained, retained, used and abused. The United States during the time of Gilead is essentially “The Lottery” in that the people in power have picked a group to suppress, a scapegoat, in this case women and minorities, as the capitalist system in “The Lottery” picks person ‘x’ each year. Both authorities do so to keep their power. In the United States, the people of authority were not secure enough in themselves to be able to stand a rapidly changing society so when they acquired power; they kept it by creating a distinct line between the superiors, them, and the stratifications of inferiors. The changes unnerved them, made them feel uncomfortable. When they noticed that many people were getting abortions, it challenged their belief system and once a person’s belief system is challenged, they become unstable, no longer knowing how to live their lives. In “The Lottery” the ones in power, the heads of businesses, were aware of the fact that the people with less power were quietly angered by this and to keep it quite, they made sure to perpetuate and control a way, the lottery, for the people to get their anger out, on a scapegoat.