Bystanders Are Not Guilty In Jackson's The Lottery

“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the

During 1948, the United States used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it was devastating and killed many people. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson tells a story about how cruel people can be without feeling any remorse. The story is about a small town who has a yearly lottery and the winner gets stoned to death by their neighbors. The thought is that if you have a lottery, then you will have good crops that season. Written in 1948, the story tells the tale of poor Tessie Hutchinson, who is stoned by her own town for winning the lottery. In the short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson argues that all people, regardless of how civilized they may seem, are capable of great evil by contrasting seemingly pleasant and relatable details of the town with the shocking barbarity of their tradition.

An obsession exists in the world today based solely upon the use of scapegoats. According to the dictionary, a scapegoat consists of a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. Some of the most influential scapegoats consist of Jesus Christ taking suffering for the sins of civilization, the Jewish population being punished for the problems in Germany, and more recently the U.S. citizens who perished in 9/11 being punished for the sins of America. Scapegoats have come in many forms over time and have been very destructive. The usage of scapegoats in our society, such as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, has proved to be damaging, and an end must be found in order to find peace.

In the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, we see the different literary elements she uses to unfold her story. Literary elements help readers to interpret and appreciate the works of a writer. In this Essay I will show you the three most prominent literary elements that were used, and how they add to the suspense, and surprise of the story. These literary elements are point of view, theme, and tone and style.

Chapmans primary claim in the short story is that we all are guilty. Even though the crime was committed by a small town mob, Chapman also blames the bystanders. The author questions how the bystanders can sit and watch, but do nothing. He then goes on the remark, “I seemed to be looking at the heart of a criminal” (72). With that being said, that leads us to the author’s secondary claim. In the quote, “It seems fitting …hold a prayer-meeting… mercy may

So what exactly is a bystander? What goes on in a bystander’s mind? How does a bystander affect their surroundings? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bystander to be “A person who sees something that is happening but is not involved.”(Bystander) Under this definition, I can say that everybody has been a bystander at one point in their life, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This definition considers you to be a bystander if you

Throughout my years in Carolyn Clark Elementary School, teachers and parents taught us how to be active bystanders. I knew that we had the power to make decisions about how to respond to whatever we see or hear. The choices we make can make a positive or negative impact on the people experiencing the event. When we stay silent, do nothing, or look the other way while witnessing someone being hurt verbally, physically, or mentally, we are participating in something that allows discrimination and

Noor Zahi Salman stood by while she let her husband Omar Mateen mercilessly kill 50 people in the Orlando bar shooting that happened about a year ago. It was known that Omar Maten was influenced by the radicalist ideals of ISIS that is why he committed such a heinous crime. His wife watched as he bought ammunition and different materials that helped commit this massacre. This is an example of the Bystander effect. Over a countless number of lives have been lost in the United States. Either people would watch what is happening and do nothing or they would completely ignore what is happening to the victim. Furthermore, bystanders wouldn’t even try to call authorities afterwards.

In the story, The Lottery, i believe what they are doing is very wrong because that is not a normal tradition. That tradition, they do is very wrong and Inappropriate. In my opinion, it is very wrong because they are killing innocent people.

Watching and doing are two completely different things. A bystander watches and does not do anything which makes them innocent. As a bystander, most of the time it is not our place to get into other problems because it is not our business to. In the stories of, To Kill a Mockingbird and Scottsboro: an American Tragedy, there are great examples of bystanders being innocent. Bystanders are always innocent.

According to The Director of Security, Mike Mudrick; The Security Manager Dustin Loring did not feel that it was reportable as he did not see it as a crime or possible crime. He was advised that moving forward, incidents of this nature are to be reported to the Lottery if for no other reason but the fact that we have no way to verify if there was or is a crime in progress or

In Shirley Jackson’s short story entitled “The Lottery”, obedience is expressed as members of this fictional society participate in an annual stoning. Villagers assemble on a beautiful summer’s day, caring out conversation as they await the annual lottery. Once the drawing concludes, the true nature of the lottery is revealed and a randomly selected member is then stoned to death. American psychologist, Stanley Milgram, conducted controversial social psychology experiments on obedience during his professorship at Yale University. The Milgram experiment measured the willingness of study participants, a socially diverse range of male applicants, to obey morally conflicting acts instructed by an authoritative figure. Participants were under the impression they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they administer electric shock to a “learner” as a form of corrective action. Fake electric shocks progressively increased to fatal levels of electricity if actually administered. Unexpectedly, the experiment found that a majority of participants would reluctantly obey the instructions of fatal harm. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Stanley Milgram’s behavioral study of obedience suggest societal influences drive individuals to conformity, findings of the Milgram experiments reflect Jackson’s characters’ behaviors.

The purpose of “Bring in the Bystander” is to train and inform a general college population on how to be a positive bystander. Anyone is a bystander in any situation regardless if they are a positive or a negative one. A bystander is someone who witnesses a situation or is a part of a situation, and has the power to take action or not. A positive bystander will take action in a much more logical way. In order to be a positive bystander, one has to make sure that they are not putting themselves at risk in the situation. I believe that if someone has the opportunity to act positively in a situation that they should act on it. I was raised with the motto “if you can help someone, do it”. If someone doesn’t act in a situation that they were a part

In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the author's ironic yet cynical attitude is revealed through a variety of dark symbols throughout the story.

“Every group feels strong, once it has found a scapegoat” (Mignon McLaughlin, 1913). A scapegoat is someone who is blamed for all the faults and corruptions that others have committed. In history, there are lots of scapegoat examples, the most popular being; Jesus Christ and the Jews in the Second World War. In the short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson used persecution and tradition to demonstrate how scapegoating justified unfair killing. Both of these aspects relate to the World War that preceded only a couple years before the story was written. The persecution was blind and done once a year as a tradition that everyone expected to happen.