Narrator and point of view

The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is told by a third-person narrator. This narrator is mostly focused on reporting the events as they happen, but also reveals some general knowledge about the setting and the tradition of the lottery.

Also note that the narrator does have some insight into the collective mind of the community – for example, we are told that the villagers pity Mr Summers: “people were sorry for him because he had no children and his wife was a scold.” (p. 26, ll. 32-33). The collective mind also seems to be the source of the narrator’s knowledge about the history of the lottery:

(…) at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed...