The characters in "The Lottery" are not developed in any great depth. They all seem like rural American "types." Shirley Jackson uses the age-old method of differentiating them mainly by age and sex. Old Man Warner is a good example. He differs from all the males by age and from all the females by age and sex. He is the oldest male in the community, while little Dave Hutchinson is the youngest.
Authors will usually "orchestrate" their characters by creating a cast of young, middle-aged, and old men and women. In Hamlet, for example, Hamlet and Ophelia are young and of opposite sexes. Gertrude and Claudius are middle-aged and of opposite sexes. Polonius is old. Shakespeare makes all of them stand out by contrast with all the others. The term "orchestration" derives from opera, in which there are different voices and different characters to suit them. The young hero is the tenor. The ingenue is the soprano. The older woman is the contralto. The villain may be the basso profundo. And so on.
There are a number of middle-aged women like Tessie Hutchinson in "The Lottery." They all seem to look, think, and act pretty much alike. There are also a number of middle-aged men.
Soon the men began to gather. surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times.
There are also plenty of children in the assemblage. The author apparently wanted to emphasize the fact that these children are being taught to honor and preserve the lottery. Most of the male children are little boys, but the girls are older types like Nancy Hutchinson.
"Nancy next," Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box.
Most of the people in the crowd of about three hundred are farmers who have come into town for this special event. A few of the men are in business in town and have homes there. They are differentiated from the farm people by the fact that they wear suits and take charge of everything.
The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him. because he had no children and his wife was a scold.
Mr. Graves is the village postmaster. He always assists Mr. Summers in conducting the lottery. In this case he also assists little Davie Hutchinson in participating in the drawing. Davie is only about two years old, but he will be stoned to death if he draws the fatal slip, and he will be encouraged to participate in stoning his mother to death when she draws it.
Graves and Summers have to be differentiated because they are working closely together. Summers is "round-faced" and "jovial," as his name suggests. Graves is presumably quiet and serious, as his name suggests. But the characterization here as elsewhere throughout the story is superficial. It could hardly be otherwise with such a big cast of people.
Shirley Jackson does not attempt to differentiate her characters too sharply because she intends to convey the impression that these are very ordinary people doing something very extraordinary. Tessie Hutchinson will be strongly differentiated at the end when she is the one chosen to be this year's scapegoat. She will be portrayed in vivid contrast to all her relatives, friends, and neighbors who, moving as one pitiless and relentless army, approach from all sides to stone her to death.
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