Passage 1:
"Clean forgot what day it was," [Tessie] said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her,
and they both laughed softly.
Passage 2: Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so
large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she
said. "Hurry up."
In the
first passage, Tessie and Mrs. Delacroix appear to be friends; they exchange pleasant
words and laugh together. In the second passage, Mrs. Delacroix picks up a stone to
throw at Tessie to kill her. The change in Mrs. Delacroix's behavior is surprising
because there is no rational reason for it; Tessie hasn't done anything to merit Mrs.
Delacroix's willingness to participate in her death.
It is
likely that Tessie would have behaved the same way were Mrs. Delacroix and
Tessie's positions reversed. Tessie, too, has participated in the lottery every year.
There is no indication that she ever protested about the lottery's unfairness or
brutality before. She only complains because, this year, she is
chosen.
Having that said, though Tessie is a victim, she is
not necessarily better than the rest of the villagers or particularly innocent. The fact
that she has participated before, and would have again, allows Jackson to suggest that
human beings' capacity for violence and brutality is something that is only limited when
their personal well-being is threatened by it.
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