You may write synopses of literary works to help you prepare to write about them or to sum up information about them for an essay or exam. A synopsis can help you get the chronology straight, pick out significant events and details, and relate parts of a work to each other. Condensing a story to a few hundred words forces you to focus on what’s most important, often leading to a statement of theme.
For more on summarizing and paraphrasing, see Ch. 12 and D in the Quick Research Guide.
A synopsis is a summary of the plot of a narrative — a short story, a novel, a play, or a narrative poem. It describes the literal meaning, condensing the story to the major events and most significant details. Do not include your interpretation, but summarize the work in your own words, taking care not to lift language or sentence structure from the work itself. To prepare for writing his literary analysis of “The Lottery” — making sure he had the sequence of events clear — Jonathan Burns wrote a synopsis of the story.
Jonathan Burns Student Synopsis
A Synopsis of “The Lottery”
1
Around ten o’clock on a sunny June 27, the villagers gathered in the square for a lottery, expecting to be home in time for lunch. The children came first, gathering stones and talking as they enjoyed the summer vacation. Then came the men, followed by the women. When parents called, the children joined their families.
2
Mr. Summers, who always conducted the town lottery, arrived with the traditional black wooden box and placed it on the three-legged stool that Mr. Graves had brought out. The villagers remained apart from these men, but Mr. Martin and his son reluctantly helped hold the shabby black box as Mr. Summers mixed the paper slips in it, now substituted for the original wooden chips. To prepare for the drawing, they listed the members of every household and swore in Mr. Summers. Although they had dropped much of the original ritual, the official still greeted each person individually.
3
Tessie Hutchinson rushed into the square, telling her friend Mrs. Delacroix she had almost forgotten the day. Then she joined her husband and children. When Mr. Summers asked if everyone was present, he was told that Clyde Dunbar was absent because of a broken leg but that his wife would draw for the family. Summers noted that the Watson boy was drawing for his mother and checked to see if Old Man Warner was present.
4
The crowd got quiet. Mr. Summers reminded everybody of the procedure and began to call the family names in alphabetical order. People in the group joked and talked nervously until Mr. Summers finished calling the roll. After a pause, the heads of households opened their slips. Everybody wondered who had the special slip of paper, who had won the lottery. They discovered it was Bill Hutchinson. When Tessie complained that the drawing hadn’t been done fairly, the others told her to “Be a good sport” (264).
5
Mr. Graves put five slips into the box, one for each member of the Hutchinson family, although Tessie kept charging unfairness. The children drew first, then Tessie, then Bill. The children opened their slips and held up blank pieces of paper. Bill opened his, also blank. Tessie wouldn’t open hers; Bill had to do it for her, revealing its black spot.
6
Mr. Summers urged everyone to complete the process right away. They picked up stones, even young Davy Hutchinson, and started throwing them at Tessie, as she kept screaming, “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right” (266). Then the villagers stoned her.
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