Tessie Hutchinson Character Analysis: Individual Vulnerability

The Lottery is a story written by Shirley Jackson which focuses on – as the name suggests – the lottery. The twist in the story is that the individual who is selected as the winner is sentenced to die. In the Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the author explores many different themes like the scapegoat, mob mentality, tradition, and the reliance on chance. One of the central themes of the story is how an individual might be vulnerable to being persecuted by a group of individuals. This theme in the story is explored in the story mainly through Tessie Hutchinson character analysis, and subtly through the Watson and Dunbar families too.

Tessie Hutchinson Character Analysis Within the Story

Tessie Hutchinson quickly stands out from the crowd when she arrives late; she has a kind of threatening aura around her. She admits to forgetting what day it is, having 'forgot what day it was'. The town treats her tardiness with light banter, but it is implied that is was talked about, 'in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd'. And on a day when the entire community’s focus is on the lottery, this forgetfulness seems inappropriate.

Tess Hutchinson has already been marked as someone who’s happy to be at the lottery, but she isn’t so big on all the traditions that the lottery seems to reinforce. This refusal to comply with all the different traditions sets her apart, almost like an outcast, and it supports the central theme of the idea; especially when she starts objecting that Bill 'didn't [have] time enough to take any paper he wanted'and that it 'wasn't fair' (which she repeats a lot). Apart from the rule breaking, she also stands out because she seems very excited to take part in the lottery; while the other women wait and observe when their husbands are drawing, Tessie calls Bill forward, saying, 'Get up there, Bill'. The narrator also notes in the beginning of the story, how eerie and upsetting the atmosphere really is, as if people have accepted that someone they know might be dying. '[the men] stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet, and they smiled rather than laughed'. Compared to the solemn atmosphere, Tess Hutchinson seems almost lively.

The annual lottery breaks down bonds layer by layer within the community just to build them back up again. During the initial lottery picking, each family is pitted against each other. The bond that the community has dissolves into smaller bonds, namely, each family is a unit. This breakdown can be seen when Tessie Hutchinson protests that: 'You [Mr. Summers] didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!'. She is willing to sacrifice someone else’s family if her family is safe. After the initial lottery, the community comes back together, isolating the family who was picked; as evidenced by the community coming together to let her know that “they all took the same chance.” 

The second drawing of the lottery; where everyone draws out their own sheet of paper shows us how the family which was considered as a unit now is broken down into a smaller unit; the individual family member is now left to fend for themselves. Tessie Hutchinson even goes so far as to attempt to make her daughter and her husband in law choose too, yelling “Make them take their chance!”, knowing that daughters draw with their husbands’ families. Instead of trying to protect her daughter, Tessie acts as an individual to increase her chances of not being picked for the lottery. Later, we come to realize that Tessie Hutchinson is the winner of the lottery; here we can see how her family has re-assimilated with the rest of the community to form one big bond while isolating Tessie. Tessie is removed from the group, and the town community – including her family – comes back together, stoning her to death.

How Community Made Tessie a Vulnerable Person?

The community stops seeing Tessie Hutchinson as a valued community member and she is seen as an obligation the moment it is revealed she is the one who has won. 'All right, folks.' Mr. Summers said. 'Let's finish quickly'. She goes from being someone’s wife, someone’s mother to be the sacrificial lamb that year. Mr. Summers asking people to ‘finish quickly’ shows the lack of empathy among the residents; it also shows how people feel like such a barbaric act is so natural, so inevitable that questioning it would be a sin.

The expulsion of Tess Hutchinson shows how detached the townspeople are from this ritual. Tessie’s death is not seen as a tragedy but seen as an inconvenient necessity. She is so isolated from the community that someone hands a pebble even to her own son, Dave Hutchinson. The people of the community are so blind to tradition that they scoff on newer towns with younger people abolishing the lottery; they have based their entire life on it and to break away from the institution of the lottery seems something so unfathomable.

We can note that no amount of pleading from the selected individual will change the mind of the community. Although the community breathes a sigh of relief when little Dave Hutchinson is not the winner; there is no guarantee that they would not have killed him if his paper had been marked. The townspeople would willingly turn on anyone – their friends, their neighbors and even their families – which indicates that they are blindly following traditions.

The older generation, especially Old Man Warner - who Jackson has placed in the story as a benchmark for tradition - is very skeptical of abandoning the tradition of the lottery; although he is the only one who comes close to stating a ‘rational’ explanation for the lottery; it is so old that all he knows about it is that it is linked to abundance every year. 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon'. For people who share the same sentiments as Old Man Warner – the older generation – fear scarcity: they are worried that they will go back to living as hunter gatherers, and not farmers. “Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody works any more, live that way for a while. Used to … soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns.” Because of this fear of regressing back to the primitive ages; Old Man Warner does not want to entertain the idea of change as he is a metaphor for tradition. 'Pack of crazy fools,' he said. 'Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. 

As evidenced above, the town residents have such a strong conviction towards the lottery that they would put the lottery above one and all. When Tessie Hutchinson is late to the lottery, Mrs. Delacroix reassures her that she’s made it in time saying, 'You’re in time, though. They're still talking away up there'. From this interaction we can infer that these two women appear to be friends. However, when Tessie Hutchinson is chosen as the lottery winner, it is to be noted that “Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands” and she also encourages other townsfolk to “hurry up”. Any semblance of civility that existed within Mrs. Delacroix flew out the window the moment Tessie was chosen; and she readily joins the killing.

One might argue that Tessie Hutchinson could be a part of the same community that is persecuting her; the lamb could have been the wolf had she not been chosen. But even then, the classic case of individual vulnerability still stands, whoever the lamb would’ve been, they would’ve been treated in the same way. The people of the community are so used to this ritual that it doesn’t matter who has been chosen; the victim is only the victim based on a random stroke of luck. The moment Tessie Hutchinson draws the marked piece of paper she is not a popular household wife anymore; she ceases to exist to the other community members in the fervor of persecution. Her friends and even her family participate in her killing with as much enthusiasm as everyone else. In a world which is controlled by tradition and conformity, Tessie Hutchinson singles herself out as an individual, which increases her vulnerability, leading her to stand out from the crowd.

Conclusion

Tessie Hutchinson’s death is an extreme example of how innocent people can be persecuted without any valid reason. Real life parallels are easy to draw out from here, with people from various genders, sexualities, ethnicities and races being persecuted just for being themselves. Prejudice of all kind is always at random, because then unique individuals are targeted by a confirming majority and then persecuted. Based on things that they might not have any control over; like being the “wrong” sex or for having the “wrong” skin color – these people are marked by the majority who are persecuting them. Just like the community members blindly following the lottery and killing Tessie without a second thought; people in real life persecute others without asking why. Tessie Hutchinson’s death might seem bizarre at first, but as you delve deeper you might grasp how she is a poster child for all the different individuals who are vulnerable to being prosecuted by a majority for being “different”.