How Does Shirley Jackson Use Foreshadowing In The Lottery

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.

In her text “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing to develop the central idea that people’s real nature is inhumanity and they follow the traditions that develop this inhuman nature of their. By the end of the story, the narrator has come to the understanding that people are no longer humans they are savages and “The Lottery” that they do every summer is just as violent as their true nature. Even though “The Lottery” start innocently, it’s begin to change when the author gives us a small clues about the purpose of “The Lottery”. As people read the story they may not notice an author's clues about the way the story goes, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of

When many people think about a lottery, they think about the possibility of winning million dollar jackpots. Lottery ticket buyers hope that eventually one day, they will be the lucky winner to take home enough money to afford their greatest dreams and desires. In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” the lottery that takes place drastically differs from the common win big lotteries of the modern day; rather, in this lottery, the citizens win big if they don’t get chosen for the lottery and get to keep their lives. Leaders of this village tell the citizens that they need to go through with this tradition In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” from 1948, she uses a Darwinism lens, criticism from current historical events, and literary elements such as foreshadowing and symbolism to show that human nature mindlessly follows tradition to be accepted in society and to survive.

    "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

On the other hand, the villagers stoning the winner of the lottery was used as a symbol of punishment. It is one of the most established and common execution methods. However, in The Lottery, the stones represent victory of the lottery. Shirley Jackson stated that, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (Jackson 291). Stoning is symbolic in “The Lottery” because, “For stoning to be effective it requires a crowd to act together. This reinforces the point that the antagonist of this story it is not a single person but society” (Gahr). For instance, this means that the immorality of the village is so severe that the antagonist is not just one person but society itself. How do you think the villagers feel when their children were caught up in this senseless tradition by collecting stones? It is obvious that the villagers were following tradition that was done every year. “What about allowing a child to be a child?” For example; playing with toy cars and trucks, coloring books and Barbie’s, or getting push by their parents on a swing at a park. Children should not be allowed to partake in an event so gruesome and violent or seen raising anything to aggressively hurt an adult.

Shirley Jackson uses several literary devices in “The Lottery” to assist in portraying the theme of her story. Several examples of the devices used are: foreshadowing, imagery, symbolism, motif, tone, and dialogue. The main devices seen within the theme of the story however, include: dialogue, motif, symbolism, and imagery. Throughout the story the theme could be interpreted several different ways, however, the main idea is tradition. Tradition is sacred to many and meaningless to some. In “The Lottery”, tradition is something upheld only for the sake of it being tradition, no matter how unordinary or extravagant it may seem. These terms provide insight and textual evidence to help the reader determine and understand the story’s theme, being

“…but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.”

In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the people of the village are uneasy about the idea of the lottery and the fact that it was going on. For instance, the men of the village were uneasy about the lottery before it happened. I have proof of this because “their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed”(Shirley Jackson) which proves that something was holding them back from enjoying a pleasant summer day and that was the horrific event that would take place later that day known as the lottery. This helped the author (Shirley Jackson) add more foreshadowing to the story because all that she had to do was build off of it.

In stories there will be objects that will constantly be mentioned within the story. This is what is known as Symbolism. Symbolism is the use of object, name, or person to represent an idea. If a name is being use, a name such as autumn can represent the adulthood of a human. Creatures such as an Eagle, represents ‘Freedom’ and ‘America’. Even inanimate objects can represent ideas; the light bulb represents ideas that just sparked into a character’s head.

In the beginning of the story “The Lottery” the author uses foreshadowing to hint at the unexpected ending of the story. In the text it says, “ Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones and the other boys soon followed his example.” This demonstrates that the boys know the tradition in their village, were they kill one person that has the black dot on their paper. They also know that someone in their village is going to be killed by stones so they need to prepare for the slaughter before the drawings start. Through foreshadowing Jackson shows why all the kids were collecting rocks, filling their pockets with them and making rock piles.

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” explained how in a small town, which consist of many people, holds an annual lottery where here all families would come together and pull slips of paper to determine who would get “stoned”. During the lottery the people are gathered where the head of the household is called to come up and receive a slip of paper, that is pulled from a black box which holds a lot of tradition. One of the main characters arrives late to lottery claiming she forgot what day it was, and as the lottery concludes the news spills amongst the town that her husband has the slip with the black dot. As the family argues that the lottery is unfair, the result from the lottery is that the woman of the family gets stoned to death. Shirley Jackson uses irony in the

can be interpreted in a different way. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short

The story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson is about a lottery in a small village. The lottery took place in the same time the year, and the people in the story was ready for it. In addition, the story shows the interactions between people and human nature in times of fear. Nevertheless, the people in the village has to draw one person that will die probably by stones being thrown at him/her. The setting of these story shows how tradition like the lottery in the can still take place even when people don’t want to take part of it anymore, it can be shown with the effect of a small town on people, and the power that people have on other in a small village compare to big

“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.

Shirley Jackson wrote The Lottery in the late 1940’s. It seems as though the village is just having a regular annual celebration. Everyone is dressed and talking casually. The kids are playing, gathering and protecting stones. The atmosphere Jackson portrays is easy going.