Community And Irony In Shirley 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 The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective.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

The best feeling one can experience is winning a prize. For example, when one wins the lottery, one is excited, however not the lottery in the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. The lottery in this story represents a certain kind of irony known as situational irony. Now, this is not the only example of irony included in this story there are also examples of verbal irony and dramatic irony. In The story “The Lottery” there are countless instances of situational irony, verbal irony, and dramatic irony that presents readers with the barbaric ways of the town and allows readers to have an insight on the town’s issues.

When writing, authors use various writing techniques and devices to better their story. From onomatopoeia, and similes, to mood and setting, these devices are what make the stories we read astounding. Atmosphere specifically is imperative to a great writing piece as it is prevalent throughout the entire story. From the first three words to the last three words, the reader is focused on the mood they are interpreting from the storyline. In “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, the mood is what makes the story so amazing and helps us understand the theme.

The use of Satire/Irony within literature establishes situations where the unlikelihood of the occurrence of an event will happen. Jackson’s manipulation of his story, The Lottery, provides an unexpected twist to what one may seem to be a normal subject. Northrop Frye’s The Singing School, suggests that all stories are told in either one of four ways: Comedy, Romance, Tragedy or Satire/Irony (Frye 18). The use of Irony and its conventional associations eludes the reader from interpreting a story as a Romance, but instead give the reader a reversed twist. This use of ironic convention in literary work is seen through Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery; the story of Tessie

“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.

     In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” irony is an underlying theme used throughout the story. The setting is introduced as a “clear and sunny” day, but ends with the brutal death of a housewife (715). The two people who essentially run the town, Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers, also have ironic names. In addition, the characters and the narrator make ironic statements throughout the story.

In Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery," what appears to be an ordinary day in a small town takes an evil turn when a woman is stoned to death after "winning" the town lottery. The lottery in this story reflects an old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order to encourage the growth of crops. But this story is not about the past, for through the actions of the town, Jackson shows us many of the social ills that exist in our own lives.

Some may say that we are, as human beings, a violent people by nature. We see it in our own history of wars and genocide that the violence in us can grow to extreme proportions. These two stories, “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, show us that some of the violence can be brought on by people simply following blindly. Whether we look at the past or the present, these two short stories, show us the mob mentality can be very dangerous. The long dead tradition of “The Lottery” tells of the town people forgetting most of the different parts of the tradition because it takes too long, or is not feasible. The one part they never

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

Likewise Greene's literary piece is set in postwar London, “The gang used to meet every morning in an impromptu car park, the site of the last bomb of the first blitz” (Greene, 1990, p.3). Nothing in both stories foreshadows any act of violence as a ritual murder or destruction of the house. Moreover, in The Lottery and The Destructors, the setting greatly influences characters of the stories. For instance, in The Lottery, a traditional ritual is performed almost for seventy-seven-years among disturbing piles of stones gathered by all citizens of the villages, which metaphorically symbolize violence. Compared to Jackson's story, in The Destructors, young boys meet and carelessly play in a place where recently the bomb was dropped. While hanging out among wreckages of destruction, the young characters become initiated to act violently.

Similarly, dramatic irony is most well represented by the characters’ ignorance surrounding the morality of stoning an innocent neighbor to death. Since the lottery has been going on for a very long time, the people have been raised knowing nothing else. As Old Man Warner walks up to grab his slip of paper, he says, “‘Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,.’” This means that Old Man Warner is older than seventy-seven because the young boys in the story do not draw unless his father cannot. The black box is also much older than he because it “... had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born… There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here.” This proves that the original box, though it is only being used only once a year, was worn down to the point of needing a new box desperately enough that the town would actually make a new box rather than letting the topic fade from the town’s mind as it does with the current, worn box. The characters do not see the immorality of the lottery because they have been raised understanding that it is normal and that there is nothing wrong with it. The children are an example of being raised to believe the

     The Lottery, a short story by the nonconformist author Shirley Jackson, represents communities, America, the world, and conformist society as a whole by using setting and most importantly symbolism with her inventive, cryptic writing style. It was written in 1948, roughly three years after the liberation of a World War II concentration camp Auschwitz. Even today, some people deny that the Holocaust ever happened. Jackson shows through the setting of the story, a small, close knit town, that even though a population can ignore evil, it is still prevalent in society (for example: the Harlem Riots; the terrorist attacks on September 11; the beating of Rodney King.)

The word ‘lottery’ in this story is very ironic; it normally represents a positive aspect, but in this case, whoever wins the lottery, dies. It goes to show that there is definitely something wrong with the community. The people have been involved with this so-called lottery for years, “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them… There’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 5), and believe that without it, they would have an unsuccessful harvest season. They are so against change, and while most of the people of the town know that what they are doing is wrong, no one will change it, because it has been tradition for so long.

The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson. it is one of her famous works and also it is no exaggeration that her mental unease brings her successful works. Almost all of Jackson’s work is originated in horror, hauntings, and psychological uneasiness. This story shows the danger of blindly following tradition, and also represents a bitter satire on uncivilized society. To briefly summarize the story, the people of a small town gather for a yearly ritual.

In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery,” the author demonstrates how blindly following popular culture customs, with no regard to their origins, often gives tradition no meaning. For example, the popular practice of giving a diamond engagement ring to one’s significant other when one is proposing actually originated from, arguably, one of the best marketing schemes ever created by a company that was attempting to stay afloat, and more than succeeded in that matter. Moreover, the extremely popular holiday of Halloween, actually originated in Ireland by the Celtics, but most of the Celtic tradition was lost through time and transition. Thirdly, one of the most celebrated holidays, Christmas, contrary to popular belief that Christmas began when Jesus