Individual Vs Society In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

On page 27, we see that, “There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up--of heads of families. heads of households in each family. members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery” (27). The whole process and build up towards the lottery is gradual. Jackson intensively describes each scene and portrays imagery throughout her story. This makes the story slow-paced and steady yet, detailed. Pacing also affects the mood of the story as Jackson’s detailed descriptions create a peaceful vibe and setting for the story to take place in. The pacing of the story creates suspense as vague clues emerge but, are not addressed until later on. Jackson writes everything in detail which makes the reader anxious to move forth and find out what happens to whoever is chosen for the lottery. This makes the story seem longer than it is and creates a lead in to the climax. In the text, we see that, “All right, folks." Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly… Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her” (34). Throughout the whole story, Jackson describes everything in excruciating detail until we hit the climax. Once the villagers find out that Tessie received the

The Lottery is another story of a seemingly perfect town that sacrifices one for the sake of many, but in this instance, the sacrifice is in vain because it is just a superstitious tradition. The citizens of this town were blinded by tradition and rituals of the town even though many have forgotten why they do the lottery. Jackson shows this when she wrote, “The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities” (The Lottery 1). It likens these common and cheerful events such as dances and Halloween programs to the sacrificing of an innocent person to better their year. The village seemed so calm and peaceful, but they were still inclined to sin and did not feel much guilt when stoning. The Lotter depicts a dystopian society because a person is being immorally killed every year and no one is stopping it. The event has become dull and repetitive but is still being followed by the families in The Lottery. This theme is very common in dystopian societies and is shown in the evilness 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 the story, "the lottery," by Shirley Jackson. The author claims about the lottery in a unique way. She creates a very shocking and horrifying situation through the use of characterization, setting, and the theme of the individual society. She writes as if the events taking place are common to any town, she also talks about how the village lottery completes in a brutal murder each year. Village people have strange rituals that show how dangerous tradition can be when innocent villager believe or follow it blindly. As I was reading this story they keep talking about the lottery in a harmless way because before we get to know about kind of lottery they are organizing, the villager and their preparation seems harmless.

Tess’s tone in her last words before being stoned is desperate and hysterical, because she knows that her protests will not result in anything but death. The black box used in the lottery each year isn’t something that the reader would usually associate with a happy lottery. The box is described as, “shabby…splintered…faded and stained,” yet no one in the community wants to replace it because, “no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.” The color black symbolizes the savage and evil nature of the lottery as well as the townspeople’s participation in it and the shabbiness of the box indicates how outdated the tradition truly is. Like the lottery, the box is well worn with its real purpose lost, and the townspeople are extremely reluctant in letting it go, even getting defensive when the idea of it is brought up. After the stoning of the “winner” occurs, the townspeople go on with their lives as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. The lottery takes less than two hours so that the townspeople could, “…get home for noon dinner,” immediately following the execution. The normalcy of the lottery to the townspeople is horrifying and all throughout the story everyone seems ok with this evil tradition, children are shown laughing and their parents, gossiping and talking about work. When Tess Hutchinson chooses the paper slip with a black dot making her the “winner”, Bill Hutchinson, her husband, as

As the plot of the stories unfolds, the greater influence of violent tensions become evident. In The Lottery, people follow the tradition despite its cruelty and absurdity. Although the ritual of the lottery is brutal, the dwellers of the village do not seem to see how barbaric it is because “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson, 1982, p. 118). Nevertheless, the tensions grow when the lottery begin and every citizen is awaiting for its end. The climatic moment of the story grows when the reader discovers that Tess

Their quest to hunt and kill the other led to nothing of importance or progression, they became trapped in peril as the force of mother nature became a bigger conflict than their ultimate enemy. In The Lottery the characters are emotionless towards others, they feel no empathy or remorse. As Tessie was put to death the characters remained calm, sort of relieved it wasn’t them on the other side of the pebbles being put to death by the “community” because of a draw. Even Tessie Hutchinson wasn’t one to complain before her fate of being stoned to death had become reality. After it was her who was chosen, she objected the tradition. The villagers are narcissistic and completely oblivious to the transgressive June 27th tradition. This is a direct insight into how people in our real world operate. We only seek action and justice once the problem begins to affect us firsthand. The lack of empathy prevents us from creating an amicable world.

Once upon a time there was a little village. In this village three hundred people happily farmed and played and went about their business. The children went to school while the men cut wood or farmed, and the women cooked and cleaned. Every summer in June each of villagers took part in the traditional lottery drawing and one villager was picked for the prize – a stoning. In 1948, Shirley Jackson published this short story known as “The Lottery,” in The New York Times. The story’s plot shocked readers all over America as they learned of the horror happening in such a quaint town. Jackson purposely set this tragic event in this innocent setting to emphasize humanity’s cruelty. Using her appalling short story, The Lottery,

The Lottery In the short story “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson, we see a theme of duality of human nature. Towards the end of the story, Tessie’s children betray their own mother and kill her by stoning. Tessie Hutchinson’s children don’t seem to be reluctant to kill their own mother. In other circumstances, the children probably wouldn’t do this, but they had to in these circumstances.

In both stories, the innocent characters were fighting death at the hands of someone who found the idea of killing another human being to be a game. In “The Lottery” the game of death consumed an innocent life solely because a few individuals founded a tradition; and in “The Most Dangerous Game” the game of death consumed an innocent life solely because one person thought it was merely entertaining. Both authors portrayed the antagonist as friendly, warm and welcoming. In the Lottery, the antagonists were the families whom participated in the drawing of a name that lead to the stoning of another family member (which may or may not be their own family member). In “The Most Dangerous Game” the antagonist was a well-off general who opened his luxurious home to guests who have gone astray from their original destination. Death is the main theme of both short stories and both authors portrayed this dark and dreary idea as a game the characters are playing.