Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

“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.

“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

Furthermore, the people in this story were attached to the tradition for the wrong reasons, aside from the fact that they did not know the reason it was put in place decades before, they were scared to change the norm of their town because they did not know anything different. No one in the town dared to question the tradition, except for the younger generation. “They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery” (Jackson, 4). The social hierarchy that Jackson implicitly represented was also relatable to the one in the war. Mr. Summers was represented as the conductor of evil, the one who continued and forced the tradition on others because it did not affect him

In the short story "The Lottery," author Shirley Jackson creates a very shocking and horrifying situation through the use of characterization, setting, and the theme of the individual versus society, which is portrayed in the story as scapegoating. She writes as if the events taking place are common to any town (Mazzeno 2). The story was very unpopular when first published, mostly because of the fact that people did not understand it. The story of the all-to-familiar town, ordinary in every way except for the ritualistic murder taking place has since grown great popularity, even being adapted for television, ballet, and radio (Lethem 1-2).

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.

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 .

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.