Take a close look at Jacksons description of the black wooden box ...

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Take a close look at Jacksons description of the black wooden box (paragraph 5) and of the black spot on the fatal slip of paper (paragraph 72). What do these objects suggest to you? Are there any other symbols in the story?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What is the significance of the afternoon that Anders does remember? Whatdo the final words, They is, symbolize for him?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[Bison]

Answer to Question 1

• Every year the townspeople consider replacing the shabby black box, but then no one acts to make any changes. There does seem to be a hint of superstition about this particular boxs importance, because of a rumor that some of its wood was from the previous box and therefore from the building of the town itself. The black wooden box has been used since before the oldest member of the community, Old Man Warner, was born, which suggests this horrendous tradition has taken place since the towns beginning. That no one wants to improve this stained, faded box parallels the horrendous truth that no one wants to change the tradition itself: No one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box (par. 5).

The fatal piece of paper is marked with a black spot that Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office (par. 72). This seems to be yet another part of the violent ritual. Mr. Summers does nothing to stop this event. Because of both objects, the reader assumes this lottery will continue to go on for many years since no one stands up to stop the killing or questions why the tradition exists at all.
The stones may be considered another symbol. When Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands (par. 74), she revels herself as a person who fully supports the ritual and who wants to get it over with. Mrs. Dunbar seems to use her physical limitations as a way not to participate when she tells Mrs. Delacroix to run ahead of her; she carries small stones. The village boys gather piles of little stones, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles (par. 76). It seems that Jackson uses the characters choice of stones to reveal something about character. Ask your students to consider if other objects can be considered symbolic.

Answer to Question 2

• At the start of Orson Welless classic 1941 film Citizen Kane, newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane dies with the word Rosebud on his lips; in the films final sequence, we, unlike the reporters investigating the matter, learn that Rosebud was the name of the sled he had as a little boy. We could call Anderss final recollection a Rosebud moment, for he too dies recalling a time when he was still young, innocent, and uncorrupted, at the furthest possible remove from the sneering cynic he has become: He wants to hear Coyles cousin repeat what hes just said, but he knows better than to ask. The others will think hes being a jerk, ragging the kid for his grammar. But that isnt it, not at allits that Anders is strangely roused, elated, by those final two words, their pure unexpectedness and their music. He takes the field in a trance, repeating them to himself.