English

“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 The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective.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

Jackson create the dynamic character of Tessie by revealing contrasting aspects of her character from the beginning of the story to the end. In the beginning of the story Tessie Hutchinson joins the crowd, flustered because she had forgot that today was the day of the lottery. She said to Mrs Delacroix “Clean forgot what day it was.” And then she joins her husband and children at the front of the crowd, and people joke about her late arrival. This indicates that she is sarcastic and dismissive nature about the lottery.

To properly illustrate my first point, in "The Lottery" the tone is very contemptuous. To brief, the lottery consists of a group of people, each having an equal chance of receiving the winning slip. Receiving this slip results in, obtaining the right to get stoned by the people around them. When the people get elected to get stoned it shows the brutality of human nature, however this method was used so that the plantation of crops remain adequate. Considering in the story, Tessie only speaks out how "unfair" the lottery is when her family is chosen, it displays how she views herself in comparison to others. The observer of this text can infer that if it were someone else stoned or chosen to be stoned she would not have spoken out. For inference in the story, Mrs. Hutchinson says "[clean] forgot what day it was […] and they both laughed softly."(Jackson 28-29) In other words, Mrs. Hutchinson acted as though

Another message that Jackson illustrates is the blind following of tradition and how that can be a terrible thing. All the members of the community participate in this horrible act because it is a tradition. The people believe that if it is a tradition it then the lottery must not be a bad thing. When Old Man Warner heard that some communities had stopped the lottery he called them a “pack of crazy fools.” He said, “There’s always been a lottery.”(247) Jackson shows how a tradition can be so brutal yet everyone will go with it because it’s in fact tradition. To go against tradition would be to go against the community, so no one is willing to do that. Jackson shows the long running tradition when the black box that is used to hold the slips of paper never changes. It shows the inability for change in the community.

Human nature is the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting that humans tend to have naturally. At the heart of “The Lottery” lies the question of whether the townspeople continue the practice due to their human nature, or if this cruel tradition leads the townspeople to continually act against their human nature. In answering that question, A.R. Coulthard clearly argues that “savagery fuels evil tradition, not vice versa”. However, Jackson never seems to make a strong statement that the nature of the

Through use of having community events, celebrating traditions, and repeating the traditions, Shirley Jackson is able to prove that the townspeople are not as cruel as the audience may think. They have many community gatherings that are happy, unlike the lottery. “Jovial man” Mr. Summers conducts the lottery, “the square dances, the teenage club, and Halloween program.” It is very obvious that Mr. Summers, is not a bad man, so he cannot, and should not be blamed for the lottery. Shirley Jackson is trying to prove that although the lottery itself is bad, the people who participate in it are not. Even though the lottery appears to be horrid, Jackson attempts to make the town look civil and human. All the town does the lottery so that they can have good crops that season. The saying goes “lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” People are considered “crazy fools” if they do not continue with the lottery. Jackson tries to show that the people who second guess the lottery are not popular with some people in town. Also if the town has a bad crop year townspeople will probably blame the doubters. The townspeople have always had a lottery, so it is unknown what would happen if they decided to skip it. Old Man Warner is the town’s oldest townsperson, and he is most experienced with the lottery. No one‒Old Man Warner included‒ ever remembers a time where there was not a lottery. “There’s always been a lottery”

In today’s society we often have an all too-casual attitude toward misfortune; Jackson shows us this aspect of human nature through the town’s casual attitude toward the lottery. The men talk of "rain, tractors and taxes" and the women gossip—all the time

As Tessie’s protests continue and the Hutchinson family prepares to draw again the sense of apprehension is one again mounting, this time fearing for whoever wins yet still not knowing what their “prize” will be. “The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, ‘I hope it’s not Nancy’”, the silence and fear of the crowds manifests in the reader as the three children and their parents all draw slips of paper. Tessie “wins” the lottery and when the narrator explains “although the villagers had forgotten the ritual, and lost they original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (6) its suddenly shockingly clear to the readers what the winner is to receive. The drastic switch from a light and cheerful tone with talk of the beautiful day and children playing to the closing like of “and they were upon her” (7) is in part why this story is so effective. The unforeseen sinister end of the story makes the revelation of the tradition much more shocking and unsettling than had the reader known from the beginning what the outcome would be. Jackson very effectively builds a sense of apprehension and foreboding as she slowly cues the reader into the reality of the situation.

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

Religious groups encourage and enforce conformity of their social norms and beliefs upon their members. Religious traditions are usually passed on from parent to child at an early age. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson reveals the tradition of the lottery and how all of the villagers conform to the ritual of a human sacrifice. Growing up with an exceptionally religious father I can relate to way of thinking of the villagers that traditions are accepted without questioning.

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.

Jackson shows people following traditions that involve excluding others. It is a tradition for some communities to exclude “bad” people and allow the “good” ones (Steele, Kidd, and Castano 190). It is typically accepted norms that determine who should be excluded due to gender, race, one's birthplace, and so on. Everything from breaking laws to just being an outcast can lead to social death. In “The Lottery,” Tessie is not a lesser member of the small town.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Structures familiar in narratives - common sequences (seasons, days of the week), rhyme, repetition, and time sequence

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