Population Control In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson, author of the short story “The Lottery”, portrays population control as the purpose of the story. For instance, after the narrator states the amount of time the lottery took place in other villages, it continued saying, “... in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours…” (1) The period of the lottery in other towns was prolonged, but in this village, the lottery goes by quickly. The village kept a consistent population, and the population has never increased more than three hundred. In addition, Mr. Summers argued that he will need to use something sturdier than pieces of paper “... now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing...”