One of the leaders and important man of the town is Mr. Summers. Summer is a season of the year. It is the season of growing, the season of life. His name represents partly the old pagan fertility ritual because the harvest that is being sacrificed to is being grown in the summer. This is supposedly, according to Old Man Warner, what the lottery held each year was all about. But, in this case, the harvest should be fine because the setting of the story tells us that “the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (74). Mr. Summers did many things to slowly ween the old tradition, the old harshness, out of the ordeal. He had the wooden chips replaced with more convienent slips of paper. He also “spoke frequently...about making a new box” (75), so, therefore, he also represented new ideas as well as old. The new ideas that the close-minded village people would not accept. If given the chance, Mr. Summers would have more than likely accepted and backed the motion to cease the lottery and stop the sacrifice. Even though he conducted the lottery which someone was sacrificed (murdered) he is seen as one of the most innocent characters because of his “new” ideas and wishes for something b
The younger generation having to start taking part in this occasion is portrayed by young Jack Watson. He is finally head of the household and is drawing for his family. There is a possible chance that Jackson could have been somehow referring to a famed American psychologist by the name of John B. Watson. John B. Watson was a leading popularizer of behaviorism in Shirley Jackson’s time. Behaviorism takes objective evidence of behavior (as measured responses to stimuli) as the only basis of its research and theories. In other words, young Jack Watson was supposed to be portraying the new idea of the younger generation: that they knew what they were doing was wrong because of the simple evidence of innocent people dying.
One of these is Old Man Warner. Mr. Warner is the oldest man in town and, therefore, having the most knowledge of what the original tradition was all about. He lets us know that there has “always been a lottery” (77). He is repetadly shown “warning” the younger parents and the younger generation of what they are in for if they do away with the lottery. Hence, he gets the name Warner. He claims the “young folks” are a “pack of crazy fools
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