Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was written in 1948. The story takes place in a village square of a town on June 27th. The author does not use much emotion in the writing to show how the barbaric act that is going on is look at as normal. This story is about a town that has a lottery once a year to choose who should be sacrificed, so that the town will have a plentiful year for growing crops. Jackson has many messages about human nature in this short story. The most important message she conveys is how cruel and violent people can be to one another. Another very significant message she conveys is how custom and tradition can hold great power over people. Jackson also conveys the message of

Traditions are widespread among many different people and cultures; It is an explanation for acting without thinking. Not all traditions are a good thing, though, and blindly following them can lead to harsh consequences. The villagers in a small town in “The Lottery” gather together annually to participate in this tradition, where one person in the town is randomly chosen in a drawing to be violently stoned to death by citizens. It has been around for seventy-seven years and everyone partakes in it. People always attend, showing the importance of tradition amongst the society. However, in the short story, “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses many literary devices to show that traditions are not always meant to be followed.

According to Helen E. Nebeker, most acknowledge the energy of The Lottery, admitting that the psychological stun of the ritual murder in a modern, rural small-town cannot be easily overlooked. Virgil Scott, for instance, says, “the story leaves me uneasy because of the author's use of incidental symbolism: the black box, the forgotten tuneless chant, the ritual salute to assure the entire recreation of the procedure of the lottery forget to serve the story as they may have.” At that point, they indicate fundamental weakness by acknowledging that Jackson has preferred to give no answer to her story, but it leaves the meaning to our imagination, allowing a good deal of flexibility in our interpretation, while yet demanding that everything in the story has been obtained to assure us how we are to 'take' the ending events in the story. Maybe the critical conflict depicted above comes from failure to see that The Lottery really intertwines two stories and subjects into a fictional vehicle. The obvious, easily discovered story shows up in the facts, wherein members of a small town meet to decide who will be the next victim of the annual savagery. The symbolic hints which develop into a second, sub rosa story becomes apparent as early as the fourth word of the story when the date of June 27th alerts us to the season of the summertime with all its connotation of ancient ritual. From the symbolic development of the black box, the story shifts quickly to climax.

Publishing “The Lottery” in 1948, at the termination of World War II, Shirley Jackson uses prevalent cultural and historic cues throughout this story to insinuate a threatened, late 1940’s American society. References to the Holocaust were made by appeasing to this violent and sadistic tradition of stoning, in like manner the propelling of the stones reference the propelling of The Atomic Bomb. Consequently, the people of this village were forced to conform with the inability to observe humanity. Jackson’s purpose of writing “The Lottery” was, “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (236). In this story, she was trying to present a barbarous tradition

I was able to gather this by seeing key words such as “they” and: “Tessie Hutchinson was late.” There are many characters in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, such as Mr. Graves, The children, Tessie Hutchinson, Mr. Summers. Etc. But one of the ones that really stuck out is Mr. Summers. He is the only character that the narrator goes into detail about; even if it’s not the typical description. He is described as round faced jovial man who has time and energy. That description consequently makes him a round character, everyone else is really flat cause not much description was given for them. He is also static, because he seems to stay the same, and to me he seems bored due to his tone in the beginning and the end. Mr. Summers is the antagonist, so is everyone else in the village which includes Tessie who was stoned to death. I say this because everyone is condoning such acts of evil, and Tessie didn’t say anything till it was her facing evil, even though she too has stoned someone in the past. Characterization is given indirectly, because the reader doesn’t even get a sense of who Mr. Summers or any of the other characters really are until the end. Mr. Summer holds great deal of significance and symbolism. He represents the start of the summer, which brings the lottery each year. There are others who names have much meaning to it, Such as Old Man Warner, who is one of the oldest

The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson portrays a small town trapped in a futile tradition due to superstitious beliefs bringing upon more evil than prosperity. The small town of people are caught following a tradition blindly or to frighten to change their ways leading to serious consequence. some however, do question the lottery but are quickly shut up by old man Warner with the belief that the tradition of the lottery brings a good harvest of corn to the community. As the community continues to follow the pointless tradition Tessie is ultimately sold out by her husband and is stoned to death informing the reader that continuing to practice something as cruel as the lottery will cause serious consequences and will bring out the evil in mankind.

Economics has always been an important part of society ever since the first people learned how to trade goods. Wars have been won and lost over economic power. Studies in Marxist criticism show that exact theory of how economics is the basis of most decisions in history. It’s no surprise that our history is filled with human sacrifices in many different cultures to insure good harvest, or good stocks. Shirley Jackson wrote this story about a human sacrifice to ensure good crops in a small town. Her take on human sacrifice differs from others in that she set this in a more modern time. But the sacrifice is not the only thing that makes this story disturbing. It’s the fact that the whole town sees the sacrifice as a normal way of life and that

In the story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, there's a small town that does the Lottery. Every year on June 27th, everyone in the town gathers in the town square around ten o’clock. There is a black box with many pieces of blank white paper and one paper with a black dot on it. The oldest male from each family picks out a piece of paper. If you're the male who picks out the black dot, someone in your family is going to get stoned to death. Mr. Hutchinson was the one who picked out the piece of paper with the black dot. There are six people in his family so they put six pieces of paper in the box. All of the pieces of paper were blank except for the paper with the black dot. Each family member picked out a piece of paper. Tessie,

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson deals with many themes in very few pages, but the most intriguing are the death and violence, which seem completely unexpected. This short story can be seen as a perfect example of Rene Girard’s theories about sacrifice, desire, and ‘scapegoat’ mechanism, which is what this essay will endeavor to illustrate.

Taking an everyday idea and turning it into something magnificent is what author Shirley Jackson achieved with her short story “The Lottery”. The short story is a brilliant view on tradition. What is normally thought to be a game of joy and winnings is turned into a horrifying ritual that has been blindly executed throughout the years with little reasoning behind it. Though multiple themes tend to arise in stories such as this, the theme “Fear of change” is the most obvious idea that Jackson seemed to want to get across to the audience. This theme can be seen through the characters, setting, and the symbolism in the story.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a well-known short story that tells a story about an event that happened in a small farming community and how it reflects on her version of not everything is as it seems. With this she is able to reflect on this communities reasoning for holding an annual lottery as if it were a ritual each year all the while leading up to something sinister or amidst among this so called tight net community. In the beginning, I thought that Jackson was telling a story of a community who had been excited that one of their own in the past had won the lottery and was using June 27th each year to celebrate with and each of its citizens having their own role to play. The story began by doting on how it was a clear and warm summer day whilst the flowers were in full bloom then it jumped right to setting the tone of the story by talking about how each part of the town’s people began playing their roles. First, the children were assembled and the mentioning of them gathering stones. Then the men and women were gathered as they addressed their focus on the corner area where the stones were being piled. (Jackson) This is when I began to realize something was not right and having the feeling of being unaware of beginning of the story instead of at the end. Asking myself why would these people be gathering in town square and why were stones being collected and for what reason because winning the lottery to me brings

According to Anais Nin, a prominent Spanish author, "When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. " Shirley Jackson was born in 1919 in San Francisco, California to Leslie and Geraldine Jackson. She is most well known for her short story titled “The Lottery” which was first published in The New Yorker to overwhelming and mixed reviews. The lottery, as portrayed in the short story, is a religious, annual ceremony in the afternoon of June 27. This event is said to be older than Old Man Warner and has lost most of its meaning. Every year, a “lucky” winner is blindly chosen with the use of a magical, black box to be stoned to death with the hopes it will produce rain for their

The theme of the 2 story’s The Lottery by Shirly Jaxson and First they came … by Martin Niemoller is it is dangerous to follow blindly . The lottery is a story were everyone still does this tradition that basically gets people killed if they “win” then the towns people throw rocks at the people who “won” . They first came is a poem and it is about how the Nazis come for all of these different people and he did not stand up then they came for him and no one else was there to help him so basically taking the right path is not always the easiest path . So basically the two story’s are saying it is dangerous to follow the crowd and it can end in disastrous consequences .

Shirley Jackson was born on December 14, 1916, in San Francisco. She spent her childhood in nearby Burlingame where she began writing poetry and short stories as a teenager. Shirley is known as one of the most impressive and persuasive authors of the twentieth century. Her best piece of work is the short story “The Lottery” published on the June 26, 1948, revealed a frightening underside of a rural American village. In ‘the lottery’ a human being stoned to death and her fate is decided by the black box that contained the paper with the black spot. That innocent person becomes the victim of violence and cruelty by the community. However, the community still believed that what they are doing will somehow benefit them in the form of good crop.

When “The Lottery” begins, nothing seems unusual about this community, no hint of what is to come, or how heinous an act is about to occur. As they ready themselves for what seems to be a cheerful event, preparing as if to win something valuable, rather than to lose this lottery, eagerness and enthusiasm fill the air. The tradition this community has been following, is overly duteous, more sheep like, illustrating the extent to which people will go to fit in, to be part of a crowd, to feel accepted. The theme of this story is a reflection on some of Shirley Jackson’s life, from her experiences as a wife in a small community in conjunction with her perspective of the events of WW II.