"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson opens on a warm June day in a town of about 300 people and describes an annual event in the town, a tradition that is apparently widespread among surrounding villages as well. Children arrive in the town square first and engage in "boisterous play." Some of the boys create a "great pile of stones in one comer of the square."

When the men of the village arrive they stand away from the stones, joke quietly, and smile in stead of laugh. The women arrive next. As they join their husbands, they call to their children. One mother's voice carries no weight, and it is her husband that commands Bobby Martin's attention.

The event for which they gather is a lottery conducted by Mr. Summers, a neatly dressed, jovial businessman with a wife but no children. Although many traditional customs associated with the...