‘The Lottery’ (1948) by Shirley Jackson and ‘Midsommar’ (2019) by Ari Aster

The Banality of Evil and Theodore Adorno’s concept of the ‘shudder’.

“Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
― Theodor Adorno

Shirley Jackson’s chilling short story was first published in 1948 in The New Yorker and generated more letters than any other work ever published in the magazine. Readers were furious, offended, somewhat curious and bewildered, with many, immediately cancelling their subscriptions to the magazine.

Some of this public outcry can be assigned to the policy of The New Yorker not stating whether the works they published were fact or fiction. But even then the outcry, so vehement and so sudden, will need more than this editorial policy to explain such a reaction to a very short, short story. The Lottery is one of the most widely known stories in American literature and in American culture so here is just a very brief precis.

The Lottery takes place on June 27, a beautiful summer day, in a small New England village where all the residents are gathering for their traditional annual lottery. Though the event first appears festive, it soon becomes clear that no one wants to win the lottery. Tessie Hutchinson seems unconcerned about the tradition until her family draws the dreaded mark. Then she…