Character Analysis of the Lottery Essay

Shirley Jackson’s, The Lottery, is a short story that begins innocent and unassuming, but finishes with a much darker undertone. Many themes are presented in this story but one is much more prominent; you need a willingness to change tradition. Jackson created characters that represented this theme very well, as they were able to convey the traditions and emotions she was trying to show without being boring or two-dimensional. The townspeople’s refusal to change - or even completely abandon - the tradition of a lottery is what will be their downfall.

If the individual receives the card with the black dot, death becomes the outcome regardless of their innocence. In this instance, Tessie Hutchinson became the victim because of Old Man Warner's actions. This is because Old Man Warner is clearly making the attempt to recognize the importance of the lottery and ensuring the village does not neglect this tradition. Had he not done this, the village could have been considering giving it up as well.

“You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted! I saw you. It wasn’t fair!” (Jackson 264) Tessie was desperate to get redo and be able to redraw. Another instance that foreshadows the ending was how a girl from the crowd whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy” (Jackson 265) one of Tessie’s kids, signaling that whoever is the “chosen one” from the Hutchinson family will face something terrible. “Then the stoning begins, turning reality on its head. Because Jackson is so meticulous in grounding us in realistic, specific details, they sharpen the violence and make the ending so incredibly surprising.”

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the small village, at first, seems to be lovely, full of tradition, with the townspeople fulfilling their civic duties, but instead this story is bursting with contrast. The expectations that the reader has are increasingly altered. The title of this short story raises hope, for in our society the term “lottery” typically is associated with winning money or other perceived “good” things. Most people associate winning a lottery with luck, yet Jackson twists this notion around and the luck in this village is with each of the losers.

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published on June 26, 1948. The story was initially met with negative critical reception due to its violent nature and portrayal of the potentially dangerous nature of human society. It was even banned in some countries. However, “The Lottery” is now widely accepted as a classic American short story and is used in classrooms throughout the country.

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.

The idea of winning a lottery is associated with luck, happiness and anticipation of good things. In Shirley Jackson's story, " The Lottery", this is not the case. The irony of the story is that the winner of the lottery gets stoned to death by everyone else in the town. The story is very effective because it examines certain aspects of human nature.

    "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 a result from the town’s selfishness, between Tessie and the crowd, Tessie suffered the annual death by having rocks thrown at her. Children and

It has been seen that sometime people do what they desire and can go against the general. Tessie did show that people can do it because she herself did it, but the story shows how not everyone can do this. When the people in the lottery were getting ready to find out who would win the lottery they were so nervous because they knew this was bad “ most of them were quiet...they grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously.” everyone is scared and anxious, they all know this is bad but nobody put a stop to it because they know if they spoke up it would not be

In the story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the plot goes from what seems to be a silly little game and gets turned into a drawing to the death for one member of the community. When the community gathers together, Tessie Jackson talks to some of the other ladies about how the lottery is a tradition to be carried on. Once the lottery drawing begins everyone carries on as nothing bad will happen. “You didn’t give him enough time to take any paper he wanted!! I saw you! It’s not fair!!”(Jackson). When the Jackson family is chosen from the lottery, Tessie starts to panic while all the other families carry on. You can tell by the way tessie reacted that winning the lottery is not as good as it sounds. As Tessie opened up her paper to find

At this point in time, not only does Tess get frowned upon because she is late on such an important day, but she is now being judged by her neighbors as someone who should not be a part of their community. Due to the fact, that she comes off as way too eager at the lottery for someone her age, essentially, but it also seems as though she is not very attentive when it comes to the rules of the lottery and its’ tradition that it is trying to enforce. Another example of how Tess stands out is when she tells her husband, Bill Hutchinson, who gets called to go and draw a name to go and, “get up there, Bill” (434). This short statement from Tess ends up causing the people around her to laugh, which essentially makes her stand out from the rest once again. Tess’s eagerness to see the lottery in the beginning, mirrors how desperate she becomes when she trys to get out of the event itself when she ends up getting picked.

In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.

“Justice is doing for others what we would want done for ourselves,” -Gary Haugen. Gary Haugen is trying to say that seeking justice for others is important because that is what people would want done for themselves. In Jackson Shirley’s short story “The Lottery”, the main character, Tessie Hutchinson, must bring justice to her community. Tessie must try to get her village to realize that their annual lottery is not just. Tessie believes this is not just because they are wrongly murdering people. The villagers do not agree with Tessie and think that because she ‘won’ the lottery she is trying to get out of the death that comes with winning. Tessie realizes in the end that even though what the village is