SOURCE: "A Folkloristic Look at Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery,'" in Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, Vol. XLVI, No. 4, December, 1980, pp. 119-24.

In the following essay, Allen analyzes the elements of folklore and ritual in "The Lottery," contending that Jackson successfully uses them to reveal various kinds of social behavior.

Most studies of folklore in literature fall into one of two categories. Either they are concerned with identifying specific items of folklore in works of literature, or they attempt to interpret the use of folklore as integral to the meaning of particular literary creations. Historically, folklore-in-literature research has been oriented more toward identification than interpretation; as a result, the preponderance of studies of folklore in specific literary works has focused on the stylistic uses of folklore to set a mood, to delineate a character, or to provide "local color." In spite of repeated pleas for scholars to go beyond...