Acts of Violence and Brutality Illustrated in Jackson's The Lottery and Hurston's Sweat

Another method Jackson uses is making the characters seem excited and joyful. After the kids arrive, the men begin to gather, talking about planting and rain, tractors and taxes, normal everyday topics that men typically discuss. Next, the women begin to arrive, greeting each other and exchanging gossip. The scene Jackson is painting for the reader is of a common, ordinary gathering of the village like a town meeting only with something exciting about to happen. The town people are all standing around waiting for the lottery, talking, laughing, and carrying on. This is all part of the irony of Jackson’s story. Jackson creates these normal, happy scenarios like when Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Delacroix were talking. It says that the two women “laughed softly,” after exchanging a joke (Jackson n.d.). This is another example that Jackson uses to make the reader believe the day is not overly important. The next light hearted segment we see in the text is when Mr. Adams goes to draw from the lottery. Mr. Adams goes to the stand where Mr. Summers is and they greet each other by first name. It concludes this interaction by saying, “They grinned at one another humorlessly” (Jackson n.d.). Jackson makes this drawing so nonchalant that the reader at this point is dying to understand what great reward is awaiting the winner of the lottery. Now the reader finds what the winner of the lottery

1. In chapter eleven of his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster examines violence in literature, and particularly the way violence functions on multiple levels. Foster identifies two different kinds of violence in literature, and discusses how those two different kinds create different literal and literary meanings. By examining Foster's categories of violence in more detail, one can see how violence in literature serves as an important link between the internal events of a story and the story itself.

Jackson’s story takes a critical look at what can result when the customs and laws that govern society go unchallenged. She sets up the story by showing that the townspeople are quite normal. They attend the lottery while having everyday discussions about the mundane topics of life, such as taxes, food, and housework. Nevertheless, they

Within the first few lines of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" we are faced with such adjectives as clear, sunny, fresh and warmth. She goes on to paint a picture of small children just out of school for the summer, as the townspeople gather for the annual Lottery. This leads us to believe that the rest of the story is as cheery as the summer day initially described. We as the readers are virtually unaware of the horrible senseless events that lie ahead. Through the use of symbolism Shirley Jackson reveals the underlying decay of ethics that results from an empty ritual followed by narrow-minded people.

In today’s society we often have an all too-casual attitude toward misfortune; Jackson shows us this aspect of human nature through the town’s casual attitude toward the lottery. The men talk of "rain, tractors and taxes" and the women gossip—all the time

When a loving, caring, family oriented, women come in conflict with the horrible, despicable, inhumane lottery in a situation in which the town goes together, the results may be a terrible end in a young life. In “The Lottery” written by, Shirley Jackson, the main character Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson’s and the town folk are the main characters of this story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses the use of characterization to portray the main ideas of the story. Shirley Jackson also uses the use of plot structure and the point of view in which the story is being told. The Lottery is a way to make a sacrifice for a good harvest in the upcoming season.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story littered with warnings and subtext about the dangers a submissive society can pose. While the opening is deceptively cheery and light Jackson uses an array of symbols and ominous syntax to help create the apprehensive and grim tone the story ends with. Her portrayal of the town folk as blindly following tradition represents the world during World War II when people’s failure to not mindlessly accept and heed authority lead to disastrous consequences. . Shirley Jackson uses a large array of techniques to help convey the idea that recklessly following and accepting traditions and orders can lead to disastrous consequences.

    "The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice.  The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens.  On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate.  Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice.  Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about.  Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective

Society today sees the lottery as an easy way to win a ginormous amount of cash just by buying a little slip of paper with a combination of numbers. The irony that Shirley Jackson uses in her short story, The Lottery, is used to the extreme by not only the title being ironic, but also within the story. The lottery is seen as a way to gain cash, but the ironic part of the title is that the reader sees it and thinks that the story will be about someone winning a big prize, yet the winner is sentenced to being stoned to death. Within the story, Shirley Jackson writes about how one member of the community ultimately chooses who wins the lottery. Another ironic thing about someone chooses the winner is that one of the communities sons picked his own father to win the lottery. Linda Wagner-Martin analyzes The Lottery and its irony by writing, “Bringing in the small children as she does, from early in the story (they are gathering stones, piling them up where they will be handy, and participating in the ritual as if it were a kind of play), creates a poignance not only for the death of Tessie the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to the youngest Hutchinson, little Dave. Having the child draw his own slip of paper from the box reinforces the normality of the occasion, and thereby adds to Jackson's irony. It is family members, women and children, and fellow residents who are being killed through this orderly, ritualized process. As Jackson herself once wrote, "I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's

As much as society does not want to admit, violence serves as a form of entertainment. In media today, violence typically has no meaning. Literature, movies, and music, saturated with violence, enter the homes of millions everyday. On the other hand, in Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison, violence contributes greatly to the overall work. The story takes place during the age of the enslavement of African-Americans for rural labor in plantations. Sethe, the proud and noble protagonist, has suffered a great deal at the hand of schoolteacher. The unfortunate and seemingly inevitable events that occur in her life, fraught with violence and heartache, tug at the reader’s heart-strings. The wrongdoings Sethe endures are significant to the meaning

Once upon a time there was a little village. In this village three hundred people happily farmed and played and went about their business. The children went to school while the men cut wood or farmed, and the women cooked and cleaned. Every summer in June each of villagers took part in the traditional lottery drawing and one villager was picked for the prize – a stoning. In 1948, Shirley Jackson published this short story known as “The Lottery,” in The New York Times. The story’s plot shocked readers all over America as they learned of the horror happening in such a quaint town. Jackson purposely set this tragic event in this innocent setting to emphasize humanity’s cruelty. Using her appalling short story, The Lottery,

The short story “The Lottery”written by Shirley Jackson, is a mid-nineteenth century story concerning a town in an undisclosed location,where the mindset and traditions of its citizens were archaic and somewhat barbaric in nature. Their old fashioned traditions were especially apparent amid the men and women’s lifestyles’, in respect to their relationships with the opposite sex. Ultimately, the treatment of women in “The Lottery” illustrates how tradition can negatively impact a society. Eventually, these archaic traditions had become adapted by each individual, each child, teenager, and adult, to the point that the traditions had become second nature to them.

5. Through a feminist perspective, women view themselves as strong individuals and would be appalled by a society viewing them as nothing more than a material property. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, women had no voice in regards to public decisions and actions. For example, in the short story the townspeople had a tradition to sacrifice one person in the hopes of reaping the best harvest. In most cases the wives would be the first chosen, many feminists would view this as an abomination. Tessie Hutchinson, one of the main characters represents women who are being tyrannized by society because of their gender. Devices such as symbolism and plot illustrate the condemned roles of women in the gender hierarchy. Also, the use of ideas such as betrayal within the strong marriage bond due to the traditional sacrifice, the senior figure of society, and the following of tradition

The women in Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," are portrayed as simple, second-class citizens, subservient to their husbands and even their sons. The men run the show: All of the lottery officials are men, and they gather first, then the women. The men speak of important things, "planting and rain, tractors and taxes." The women merely gossip. The women are not authoritative, for they have to call their children "four or five times" before they obey. Everyone condescends toward Tessie Hutchinson because she is late--late because her husband rounded up the kids and brought them to the important annual event without bothering to even fetch his wife.

The short story “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson is a mid-nineteenth century tale about a town in an unknown place, where the traditions and mindset of its town folk were ancient and in some cases barbaric in nature. These ancient traditions were especially apparent between the men and women by how it was portrayed in their relationships. Ultimately, the treatment of women in “The Lottery” illustrates how tradition can negatively affect a society. Eventually, these ancient traditions had become internalised by each individual, every child, teenager, and adult, to the point that they accepted and followed these traditions without questioning them.