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Davy Hutchinson is Tessie and Bill Hutchinson’s son. Davy’s behavior suggests that he is old enough to understand basic commands but is not yet speaking. Thus, he is too young to comprehend the lottery or the severity of its outcomes, yet he is still a candidate in the drawing. This exhibits the extent of the town’s adherence to the tradition of the lottery, as the ritual is so ingrained that they would partake in stoning a small child to death. The inclusion of children as both the possible victims of the lottery and as active participants in the eventual murder shows the horrifying power of groupthink, which can cause entire communities to adhere to immoral and irrational beliefs that would seem unthinkable to outsiders. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Davy’s story is that he’s expected to throw stones at his own mother, despite not even being old enough to understand that he’s participating in her murder.
Davy’s character is also evidence of how children are groomed from birth to see this inhumane system as natural and ingrained. When viewing the short story as an allegory for how real-life societies participate in mass violence due to groupthink and pressure to conform, Davy’s character represents how children are brainwashed to behave in violent ways that could have terrible consequences for their own family, friends, and community. Considering that “The Lottery” was written in the aftermath of WWII, Davy and the other village children, who are groomed to accept the lottery as an immutable tradition, could be aptly compared to the Hitler Youth, who were brainwashed in early childhood by Nazi Germany to carry out the party’s fascist agenda.
