SOURCE: "An Old Testament Analogue for 'The Lottery,'" in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 11, No. 1, March, 1984, pp. 193-95.

In the following essay, Gibson identifies the similarities between the biblical story of Joshua 7:10-26 and "The Lottery," contending that while the biblical story emphasizes the supernatural triumph of good over evil, Jackson's story reveals a "chillingly impersonal world of gray amorality."

More than any other short story by Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" has intrigued critics and provoked puzzled guesses about its enigmatic meaning. Seymour Lainoff early on invoked the "primitive annual scapegoat rite" discussed in Frazer's The Golden Bough, and Lenemaja Friedman [in her Shirley Jackson, 1975] more recently has compared the stoning of Tessie Hutchinson to the festival of the Thargelia in ancient Athens and to similar scapegoat rituals of the Aztecs in Mexico. Shyamal Bagchee [in his "Design of Darkness in Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery,'" in...