Indirect Characterization The Lottery

In the fictional short story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, on June 27th a small village gathered together to participate in the annual lottery, an old village tradition, conducted by Mr. Summers, the lottery official. During the lottery, the head of each household in the village draws one slip of paper. Whoever draws the slip of paper with the charcoal dot on it is sacrificed for the crop season. This time it was Mr. Hutchinson, who drew the dire slip of paper. So then each member of his household had to draw, including his three small young children, Bill, Jr., and little Dave.

When a loving, caring, family oriented, women come in conflict with the horrible, despicable, inhumane lottery in a situation in which the town goes together, the results may be a terrible end in a young life. In “The Lottery” written by, Shirley Jackson, the main character Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson’s and the town folk are the main characters of this story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses the use of characterization to portray the main ideas of the story. Shirley Jackson also uses the use of plot structure and the point of view in which the story is being told. The Lottery is a way to make a sacrifice for a good harvest in the upcoming season.

The lottery is usually associated with beating the odds and winning something extravagant. In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”, the reader is led to believe the story is about something cheerful and happy given the setting of a warm summer day and children out of school for the summer. Jackson turns winning the lottery into a bad thing. Of 300 villagers Tessie Hutchinson shows up late, claiming she forgot about the annual lottery drawing, but seems very excited to have made it on time. When Tessie was in no danger she is gossiping with neighbors and encourages her husband to draw for the winner. Jackson curiously builds up the character of Tessie so that it seems she is blinded by tradition until she becomes a victim of it

In the short story "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson uses figurative language, symbolism, and irony to reveal her theme that things are not always what they seem to be. In this shocking short story, she reveals the corruption of human nature by telling of the ceremony they call “The lottery”.

    "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

“A stone hit her on the side of the head. "It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her” (34). “The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson which, sparked controversy when published in the June 26, 1948 issue of the New Yorker. Jackson used several different literary devices to support her theme that people who don’t question tradition get what they deserve. The literary devices Jackson uses to support the theme of ‘The Lottery’ are irony, foreshadowing, and pacing.

Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” is about a bizarre ritual performed in a town in which the townspeople proceed to follow every year. In a black, worn box they place all the names of the community. Once all the names are placed inside, Mr. Summers draws a name. After the name is chosen, this member will be stoned to death by the others in the community. Tessie Hutchinson in the story tries to reject the repetitive tradition of the lottery.

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

In Shirley Jackson’s  “The Lottery”, There is an annual lottery game in this village on June 27th of every year, this lottery is a ritual that has been in the village for long since, everyone in the village would gather at the time square to participate in it. Mr.Sumner, the lottery official will then brings out the black box and declared the lottery open and states all the rules, “Now, I’ll read the names--heads of families first--and the men com out and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?” (BBR 93). One of this papers will have a black spot that is put on by the coal company owner, whoever gets the spotted paper with the black dot wins the lottery and will be stoned to death.

“The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, is a short story with an unexpected outcome. The townspeople gather on June 27th in the warm summer air to hold their annual lottery. The lottery starts off by each head-of-household drawing. The family who receives the slip of paper with the black dot then has each member of the family draw. The final winner--the one who has the paper with the dot--receives the shocking and vile prize of being stoned to death by their fellow townspeople. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, uses irony to show how the actions of the townspeople directly reflects ideals society has placed on the entire town.

On the other hand, “The Lottery” was written in 1948, not long after the end of World War II and The Great Depression. The two events changed the way people in society related with one another, in such a way that people were made to embrace the thinking that every man would be on their own in order to survive. This is shown throughout the story by the citizens not having a problem with the lottery until if affects them directly. Jackson’s story also shows the sense of division and sexism between men and women associated with the 1940s. Women were often fired from their jobs in order to make room for the retuning male soldiers and were expected to return home to stay with the family. This idea of women being forced from one position of power to a lower position is shown in the last scene of “The Lottery” when the “winner” Tessie Hutchinson is the one who receives the black dot and is stoned to death. She tries to fight for her life but in the end is over powered by society’s rules.

“The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson exemplifies a short story written in 1948. The story tells a tale of a small village in which they stone one of their own. Throughout the village, there are civilians who are opposed to the lottery and others who are for it. Shirley Jackson develops a thematic theme of Isolation and Deprivation through the setting and it’s characters.

In “The Lottery” a representative for every family in this small town is to pick a paper out of a large black box that is either blank or has a black dot on the center. When Mr. Hutchinson chooses the dreaded black dotted paper, his wife Tessie is quickly on his defense. But, as soon as the family has to each choose a paper themselves and it becomes clear that Tessie has chosen the black dotted paper, he is quick to pull her paper out of her hand and show the towns people that she had the paper of death. The “Lottery” is an age old tradition that doesn’t seem to have any real reasoning. If your family is so unlucky as to get the black dotted paper it doesn't matter if you are a man, women, or a child, if you yourself choose the black dotted

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story where a small town in New England has a lottery. The small town has their annual lottery around June which have been practiced for over seventy years. This lottery is not your regular lottery, this one consists of drawing slips. Slips are small white papers that holds every family’s name that lives in the village and only one of those slips have a black dot in the middle, whoever gets the slip with the black dot is stoned to death. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism all throughout the story to criticize tradition by the setting of the story, the characters' names, and the objects. The Setting of “The Lottery” is mentioned in the beginning of the story, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny,

“The Lottery” a short story by Shirley Jackson, features a small town during the time of their lottery. The lottery is an annual event, organized by Mr. Summers. It is a highly important time, as the whole town comes to the town square on the day of the lottery. The guidelines are quite simple: everyone takes a slip of paper out of the symbolic black box, and the slip of paper with the black mark carved on it, is the “lucky winner”. But their definition of the lottery is different一usually, a lottery is a valuable thing to win. But when Tessie Hutchinson, the “lucky winner” gets her reward by getting stoned to death by the rest of the villagers, it is clear that winning this lottery can't be a good affair... So what is the purpose of this lottery? Rather than discontinuing the lottery, the town continues with it because they don't want to upset an old tradition.