Usually, when someone hears the word "lottery", the first thing that comes to mind is a large sum of money that people compete to win against very impractical odds. Shirley Jackson's story The Lottery might imply a similar conception based on the title alone, but the story is filled with unknowns never revealing exactly when or where the story takes place, or why the lottery exists; even what the lottery is isn't revealed until the very end. Yet despite Jackson's omission of details from The Lottery, she manages to create an overtone of mystery that forces the reader to grasp the world of the story rather than defining it in terms of the physical world and forming their own opinions. is a key element, and that the more detailed the setting, the more believable the story world. Jackson does not follow this style in his story; the only real information Jackson gives the reader about the world of the Lottery is that it takes place on the "morning of June 27..." and "...in this village, there was only about three hundred people..." (235). It is obvious that this is not a world story, since very few details are given about the village in which it takes place. However, Jackson is not the only author to incorporate a lack of exposition. Raymond Carver, wrote in a similar way, using very few details, realizing that: "...it is possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about mundane things and objects using a banal but precise language, and to endow these things... with an immense, even surprising, power” (quoted in May 48). The lack of detail expands the mystery of the story and offers the reader the opportunity to fill in gaps such as time spent on location; by allowing the reader...... middle of paper ......ng the revelation of what the lottery is to be all the more shocking. By using this selective exposition, Jackson effectively creates a mystery in which the reader is free to piece together snippets of information to make sense of the story world, rather than creating an imitation of reality by overloading the reader with details . This demonstrates that subtlety in writing can advance a story as effectively as bold exposition. Works Cited Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery”. Literature and its writers: a compact introduction to fiction, poetry and drama. 5th ed. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Book.May, Charles E. “See what I'm saying? »: The insufficiency of explanation and the uses of history in the short fiction of Raymond Carver. The Yearbook of English Studies. Flight. 31. 2001. 39-49. Essay.