Getting Granular with Genre Through "The Lottery"

Lauren Shoemaker: Welcome to Plugged In: A Women-Centered Science Fiction Book Club podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Shoemaker. In this semi-regular podcast series, we'll explore sub-genres, tropes, history, and current trends of science fiction written by women. Normally I have a guest with me, but today it's just me in the studio, and today that studio is actually my parents' basement. I'm visiting home for a week and had to find a quiet place to record. 

For today's episode, I read “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, which was originally published in 1948 in The New Yorker. This is a short story about a fictional town somewhere in America, we don't actually get to know where. But a lottery takes place in this town every single year.

At the start of the story, we don't really know what this lottery is. The characters’ attitudes are really chipper and make the reader think that this lottery is exciting, something that we want to happen! Maybe it's kind of like the lottery now where you win a bunch of money. But as the story progresses and the actual lottery takes place, the reader soon learns the horrors of the tradition. The lottery determines what townsperson gets stoned by the rest of the town. Yes, I said stoned as in biblically stoned, as in stones are thrown by hundreds of people at one person. The intention of this lottery in this town is to make sure that there's a good harvest and the town gets rid of any bad omens. It's basically to keep it good, to keep everything safe. 

Now that I've given this summary of the short story, you might be asking me why I chose to include this on a science fiction podcast, and honestly, that's a good question, but it's kind of what I'm gonna talk about in this episode. 

The story doesn't mention any high tech equipment or robots or time travel or anything that is overtly sci-fi and cliche and tropey. But the reason that I'm including the story is because I think it is undeniably dystopian, and I personally think that the dystopian genre is a sub genre of science fiction. And so this episode is mostly going to be about the relationship between the dystopian subgenre of science fiction and science fiction. It'll be about dissecting the definitions of these genres, determining what we actually think dystopian genre is, or what is science fiction. Maybe we'll get to the end of this episode and decide that this wasn't dystopian or this wasn't science fiction, but that's what we're here to talk about. We're here to decide whether things are or aren't, and talk about how they fit into the genre. And then lastly, we're gonna talk about why I think that this story is important for us to be discussing. Why did I choose it? Why are we talking about this? What's important? 

But before we get into all of that, I wanted to tell you about Shirley Jackson, the author of this piece. Shirley was born in San Francisco, California in 1916, and as a child struggled to fit in with other children, so she spent most of her time writing. I'm sensing a theme with some of our authors. As an adult, she specialized in horror and mystery in her stories, and she wrote six novels, two memoirs, and over 200 short stories. Some of her most well-known works are The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and of course, today's short story, “The Lottery.”

She died in 1965 at the young age of forty-eight due to heart failure. Despite her short life, her fiction has transpired and created her strong literary legacy. I mean, it's 2025 and we're still talking about her. Okay. Now that you have a little bit of background of what is this story about, who's the author, now that we know she's a horror and mystery writer, we can kind of talk about how that, and dystopian, fits into this niche.

So let's talk about dystopian fiction. What is a dystopia? A few episodes ago we talked about utopias, which are a little different. When we were reading “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, that's when we talked about utopias. The city of Omelas was described as a utopia. Utopia generally means “good or perfect place.” The definition, the Latin translation actually is just no place, which is really interesting if you talk, if you talk about that story that we read a couple weeks ago. But it generally means good or a perfect place. Conversely, dystopia means a bad place. And when we're talking about dystopias, the first thing that might be coming to your mind are the Hunger Game series by Suzanne Collins, or a Divergent by Veronica Roth, or even 1984 by George Orwell.

Personally, my introduction to the genre was way back when I was a kid and I was first reading the Hunger Games and Divergent, and I loved it. I've always loved the genre. But these are all dystopian novels. They're all very different. Some have more technology, some have less, some have more government control. Well, actually, I would argue that they all have about the same level of government control. But their contribution to the literary canon has helped to define what dystopian fiction is and what it means for a place, a city, and a story, or a location to be a dystopia. 

So by this understanding, I would personally classify “The Lottery” as a dystopia. I would, without a doubt say that this small, seemingly picturesque perfect American town is a dystopia. I don't think it's a crazy statement to say that selecting one person by drawing lots and then stoning them to death is bad, and dystopian.

So I wanna read a quote. It's from a research starter that was published by Salem University Press, and offers a definition of what dystopian fiction is. 

“Dystopian fiction depicts worlds where society's ills have been magnified and often includes characteristics such as a controlling government, a large gap between poor and rich communities, the use of technology for mind control or censorship, or a destroyed environment.”

I really like this definition. I think that it covers a lot that I would say is in the dystopian genre. So I think I'm content continuing on with this definition. So based on this definition, I think there's a few things that we can apply to “The Lottery.” We can kind of break it down. 

I would definitely say that this short story magnifies the ills of society. In this case, it's our own, or their own, ability to do harm against others. Being okay with stoning your neighbor. In the story, the woman who ends up getting chosen to be stoned, the horrific thing is that her family also has to participate in the stoning. She has three children, and even her youngest, who wasn't even old enough to know how to pick his own lot out of the box and open it and find out what his result was, he throws a stone at his own mother. At his own mother. Now, I'm not saying that I would actually see this happening in an American town, but people, not just Americans, have unfortunately the ability to do harm against one another, especially people that we, that we love or that we have a connection with or know. It's not just oh, I don't know this person. This definitely magnifies the ills of society. So check, first part yes. 

Okay. “Includes characteristics such as a controlling government.” Now we don't really know about this if there is a controlling government. What we do know about this version of America that the story exists in is that this town participates in the lottery. At one point, all the towns participated in the lottery. Some are bigger, some are smaller, like this one, and, we also know that some towns have foregone the lottery in recent years, and so it seems like there is still a choice of towns to say, okay, we don't wanna do this anymore, we think this is a little crazy. Or like the town that the story is about to continue to do it. So, I don't know if there would be a controlling government. Maybe the controlling government, in this case, is a smaller government. It's the town government, and maybe we're not talking about the country government. We're talking about local government, in which case I would probably say, yeah, it is controlling because who's making the decision to continue the lottery? Probably the local town government.

As far as a large gap between rich and poor communities, I don't know that I see that much in this story. I don't think wealth is directly something that's talked about here. There's kind of the indication that the lottery is happening to keep things good, and so maybe that has to do some with financial security or the harvest has to be good, which is directly tied to wealth. So maybe, but I don't think I would choose that as one of my definers for this story. 

The next part I think is really interesting. So “the use of technology for mind control or censorship.” I have a lot to say here. So first I would say I don't think that there's the use of technology for mind control in the most basic sense, as in, I'm putting a computer chip into your head and I'm making your body physically do this. What I think is happening is more like mind control in the cult sense, and technology in the sense that it's, this definition that I found that it's “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes.” So this technology would be the lottery. The lottery is designed to prevent environmental and agricultural issues, and so that's a practical purpose. It's also a civic event, and that was, I would say it's a scientific knowledge. I would say it's kind of like political science, psychology, which aren't hard sciences, but political science, it's in the name. And psychology is definitely a science, although a lot of people will try to argue that it's not.

But I definitely think that there's some practical purpose that the technology of the lottery has. And there's mind control. Definitely, I would say there's mind control. It's just not like we're, like I said, we're not putting a computer chip in your head and making you do this exact thing, like the mind control in Divergent. It's more mind control as in these people are living in this society and they are thinking that this is something normal. There are so many things that they'll say. oh, well, we've always had the lottery. These people who are not doing the lottery, they're so crazy for not doing it anymore. The kids that are just stuffing their pockets with stones and picking stones before the things even started. There's definitely mind control and just being content with going along with the lottery and all that. Undeniably mind control. 

The last part is about “or a destroyed environment.” There might be a destroyed environment, there might not. One of the things I love so much about short fiction and short stories is that we don't get a lot. We really don't. And that was something we talked about in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” We just don't get a lot about the rest of the world, and definitely with “The Lottery,” we don't get a lot either. We don't know what's happened, what caused them to do the lottery. We know it has something to do with the harvest or environmental or agricultural issues to make sure the world and their community is safe and stuff. So maybe there's a possibility about a destroyed environment. Maybe they had so many people, population, overpopulation was an issue and this is what they're doing to resolve that. We don't know. So I don't wanna count that one either. 

But I would definitely say magnified ills. I would definitely say controlling government, and I would definitely say use of technology for mind control or censorship. Those three things. So that's what, three out of five from this definition. By my understanding, I would definitely say that “The Lottery” is dystopian fiction.

Now that we've decided that, I wanna talk about, and offer a definition also published by Salem University Press of what science fiction is, so here it is.

“Science fiction is a literary genre characterized by its inclusion of real or imaginary science and technology, and its impact on people and societies. Science fiction plots usually take place in a futuristic or alternate world. Many narratives are set in space or fictional universes. Characters can be human, extraterrestrial, or imagined beings.”

I also think this is a very solid definition, and that's part of the reason why I'm presenting it here. I think it encompasses a lot of what I believe to be science fiction after my experience with the genre and my education about it. So that's why I'm choosing it. It's very similar to how I would define the genre myself. So I wanna break this down too, just like I did the other one. 

“An inclusion of real or imaginary science and technology.” Well, lotteries are real, and we've kind of decided, based on our last discussion about the last definition that the lottery is a type of technology. It's something that was designed based on a problem and used science, whether some people say it's pseudoscience or not, I'm going to call it science, and created a product. 

It definitely has an impact on people in society that I am not going to debate. I think that's just a fact. 

“Science fiction plots usually take place in a futuristic or alternate world.” We don't know if this is in the future. Something about it feels very, this was written in 1948, something about the story feels like it's rooted in that mid-century era. But I would definitely say it's an alternate world. That's not what our actual America is like. Last time I checked, we don't pick people from a box and stone them. We don't do that. So definitely say it's an alternate world. This is not set in space. We know that. We know it's in America, we know it's on Earth. It's definitely a fictional universe. But I think, honestly, I think fictional universe could be said about a lot of fiction that could also be said about fantasy or something else. 

“Characters can be human.” As far as we know they are humans. There's nothing that tells us that they're extraterrestrial or imagined beings like mythological creatures or anything.

So I'm not saying based on this definition, and providing it here, I'm not trying to say that I think this story is clear cut science fiction. I think there is a sub genre that is dystopian fiction and that's where “The Lottery” fits. In my mind, and this is based, this is not just willy-nilly, this is based on, like I've said in my other episodes, a couple classes that I took in college, my own experience, my own readings, my own interest in the genre, and it is a lot of my own intuition, and I've talked to other people about it too. I'm not the only one that I've talked to that feels this way, but the way that I see these science fiction slash speculative fiction genre umbrella is like this. So speculative fiction is up at the top, and that's pretty general. That's pretty broad. There's a lot that can go under there. And then I would say science fiction is a sub genre of speculative fiction. I would say another sub genre of speculative fiction, fantasy. So under science fiction, we have a bunch of sub genres like cyberpunk, time travel stories, space operas, afrofuturism, all sorts of stuff. I would also include dystopian fiction. That's where I would place it, under the umbrella genre of science fiction. I think you can have dystopian fiction that is science fiction. 

Now, I'm kind of contradicting myself by saying that I don't think that “The Lottery” is textbook science fiction. I would almost say that dystopian fiction could also exist on its own under speculative fiction, outside of science fiction, and maybe that is more where “The Lottery” fits. It could in some cases with some arguments, it could be under the science fiction umbrella genre, but with other arguments, that I think would be valid, and I encourage listeners to make those arguments in the comments. I think that “The Lottery” could be under speculative fiction as well and not be under science fiction. But I think that's really interesting. 

I want to read another quote, also from the same Salem University Press publication that I was reading the other definitions from. This is about the relationship between dystopian fiction and science fiction. I think it's really interesting. 

“Utopian and dystopian science fiction narratives, which portray idealized or oppressed versions of the future, respectively, often cite technological change as the reason for their state of affairs. Science fiction also uses alternate histories, societies, and universes to illustrate the potential of humanity to do both good and evil.” 

There's a lot in here that I think definitely applies to “The Lottery.” It's not a utopia, I included that in here because it's obviously part of the quote and utopian is the converse of dystopian. So I think it's important to include that as well. I would definitely say that this is an, and not idealized, that would be utopian, but an oppressed version of, I don't think it's the future. I mean, it could be the future. We aren't given a time when “The Lottery” happens. It was written in 1948. Who knows? It could have been set in 1949 or whenever. But I think it's meant to be ambiguous. 

It doesn't directly cite technological change as the reason for what's going on. We can't really make that assumption. But there's some kind of change that happened that caused the lottery to want to, need to exist. And whether that change was environmental, which I would say in the environment is science, definitely. So I think that should be included as well. Um, whether it's an environmental change or a governmental change or a technological change, we don't know. We can speculate, but we don't know. 

And then the last part of this quote, “science fiction uses alternate histories, societies, and universes to illustrate the potential of humanity to do both good and evil.” This is very much like the first part of the definition of dystopian fiction that says that society's ills have been magnified. It's the exact same thing, basically. These stories are used to illustrate good and evil, and in this case, in the case of “The Lottery,” it's evil, unfortunately. But I think this is a really interesting way to kind of talk about how the dystopian genre and science fiction match up in a lot of places, and how it's overlapping. There's nothing clear cut that's like this is science fiction and it's not dystopian fiction, or this is dystopian fiction and it's not science fiction. I think that's personally really interesting and that's one of the reasons that science fiction is one of my favorite genres, is because there's so much up to debate on what subgenre it fits in. Is it even science fiction? What is science fiction? What is science? What is science in general? 

And that's taking me back to my fourth or fifth grade year of school. I cannot remember which one. But this distinct memory is from one of the first few days of school. We were decorating the cover of our science notebook, and we were picking out things from magazines and we were bringing stuff from home.

The assignment was get pictures of things that are science. And then we came to class with all of our things that were science. A lot of people had robots or planets or computers or anything like that's technology and we glue these on. But the lesson was that you could literally put a picture of anything, and that is science, and it was really interesting. My teacher, she broke it down and she was like, well, could you put a human on there? Well, yeah, because that's biology, that's anatomy, that's physiology, it's chemistry. We have chemicals and elements in our body, so that's science. Okay. Could you put a table? Yeah. That's physics. That's also chemistry because what is the wood made up of? Elements. Anything is science. And I think carrying that understanding into talking about science fiction could be really helpful. 

Now, I'm not here to say that everything is science fiction because your plain Jane, not plain Jane, but your literary fiction, that doesn't really have to do with how science and technology has made a world or made a society do something, is not science fiction. I wouldn't say that realistic fiction is science fiction. There's science elements, but that definition, that’s how things, how technology and science has had an impact on people, that's what I would say science fiction is. 

I had a great time dissecting this definition. I know we didn't really get to chat a lot about what “The Lottery,” the story is actually about, but I really wanted to use it as a platform to dissect the genre, and to talk about a couple definitions and to offer some basic, my basic understandings of what these genres are and how they interact. I'm really excited to continue talking about the genre. Obviously, it's something I'm interested in. I created a genre based podcast, so of course I'm very interested in it and I have a great time talking about it. 

Next week's episode, we are going to be talking about Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. It's a novel, it's pretty short. It's only about 250 pages, and it's a really quick read. I read it for the first time in college and I'm rereading it, because I'm having my father on the episode! I'm so excited for my dad, and to talk about this. We both read it before we're both rereading it, so it will be fresh our minds, ready to chat about Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Subscribe on Spotify and follow along on Instagram at pluggedin.podcast. To access the transcript of this episode and all episodes, check out pluggedinpod.com.