"We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves." Life without diversity of color, race, religion, beliefs, etc., would be boring. Therefore as diversity expands, learning to reconcile with one another will only enlargened and strenthen today's society Intolerance and tolerance were shown throughout the stories, "The Lottery", "What, Of This Goldfish, Would you wish?", and "American Flag Stands for Tolerance". Each author expressed the many views of discrimination, acceptance, as well as they elaborated upon the common view of.
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
In this story Clyde Dunbar has a broken leg; this allows him to not participate in the lottery (Jackson 238). This is strange since the prize is death, so a broken leg should not prevent someone from participating. Therefore, though those in the town do not find that he is not required to partake strange the reader does notice the issue with this. Now children tend to be innocent. However, all the children participate in the stoning, including Tessie’s own son (Jackson 242). As the reader can tell the town finds no problem in letting the usually innocent children participate in the lottery. Lastly, Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the lottery. This is due to her views on this event “[o]n the other hand, we meet Tessie Hutchinson, the protagonist, who exhibits a rebellious nature” (Shields 416). As you can see she protested the lottery by arriving late, although she ended up winning the lottery. This shows that even though she rebelled the most, she still won. Overall the dramatic irony in “The Lottery” shows the reader the irony characters do not comprehend such as the sick not participating, the innocent children taking part, and that the character who is late to the lottery wins the
“The feelings of uneasiness caused by executions being performed in an arbitrary manner reverberates on several levels. First, we see the characters within the story itself begin to question the necessity of the ritual” (Shields 412-413). There has to be a point where someone could have spoken to reveal the inhumanity of this pugnacious tradition that has plagued the community for more than seventy-seven years. Then again, no, there are no words said about the inhumanity of the violence, until Tessie Hutchinsons’ family gets chosen. She defends her family stating, “You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!”(Jackson). She then is attacked by her fellow friends, "Be a good sport, Tessie." Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance." Mrs. Hutchinson at this point is being very hypocritical; the lottery was fair for all the citizens, so why doesn’t she just go along with the tradition? Would her outbursts have been the same if Mrs. Hutchinsons’ family wasn’t chosen? The final words of Mrs. Hutchinson were "It isn't fair, it isn't right.”
Would you stone your neighborhood to death for the sake of tradition? Shirley Jackson wrote The Lottery in 1948 to tell a story about how savage people can be for tradition. The story is about a small town who has a yearly lottery and the winner gets stoned to death by their neighbors. The thought is that if you have a lottery, then you will have good crops that season. This short story tells the tale of poor Tessie Hutchinson who is stoned by her own town, her son helps too. In the short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson argues that all people, regardless of how civilized they may seem, are capable of great evil by contrasting seemingly pleasant and relatable details of the town with the shocking barbarity of their tradition.
Tessie Hutchinson being one to protest the lottery when her husband wasn’t given enough time to choose, yet he did nothing for her when she was chosen. For the sake of tradition, these people are giving up the lives of their friends and family, their loved ones. Multiple times in the story, it shows that people are eager to finish the lottery and go back about their business. Some examples include a mother wishing her son could draw in the lottery for her if he were of age. No one in this town wants to die themselves, and yet are still laying down the lives of others to continue this twisted tradition.
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.
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
During this quarter the readings that we have read this year so far all have something to do with one very meaningful quote, "We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves". Each of these readings, American Flag, The lottery, and Texas V. Johnson all relate to the one quote about accepting others who differ from ourselves and how we need to be willing to accept them. These three readings all go back to the one quote you should also always be able to have a opinion but also always be willing to accept others no matter what.
“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.
Being stoned to death by 300 of your friends and family is possibly the worst way anyone would ever want to be killed. In the short story “The Lottery” written by an author Shirley Jackson, she mentions about a small village consisting of 300 residents who most reluctantly participate in an annual lottery drawing. I know, who in their right mind would hesitate to be a part of an event that gives you a possibility of winning a prize, which makes you wonder what the prize is. At the end of the story the protagonist, Mrs. Hutchinson, who also happens to be the winner of the lottery is stoned to death. I argue that Jackson wrote this story to inform us how living in a small community isn’t always a great thing because in a small population people start gossiping about one another, which can lead to issues and could turn into hatred.
Often, we paint a fairytale view of life for ourselves and our children. Sometimes, an author paints a frightfully realistic picture of life and forces us to reconsider the fairytale. In Shirley Jackson’s story, "The Lottery," a town each year conducts a lottery in which the winner or looser, in this case, is stoned to death by his or her own neighbors. The tradition is supposed to uphold social structure within the town, but in order to comprehend the true meaning of the story you must be able to read between the lines. "The Lottery" is a story about a town that has let its traditions go too far. Also, it is clear that the story contains eye-opening facts that lead me to
In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.
The narration and point of view in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” are essential components of what has made the story controversial and cause it to stay relevant since its release in 1948. The passage where the Hutchinson family is drawing papers to see which member will be stoned, on pages 234 and 235, exemplifies the power of this kind of narration perfectly. In this section, almost all of the aspects of narration and point of view are demonstrated, including the grammatical person of the narrator and their characteristics: whether they are part of the story world, their reliability, level of knowledge, and the ethical issues that arise from how the story is told.
They are also not willing to protect their own children for fear of upsetting the other characters in the stories. Mrs. Hutchinson points the finger at her two children because they did not draw from the box. She puts them in harm’s way to save her husband, which is similar to Jig, who is willing to abort her baby to keep her lover. Mrs. Hutchinson never states her true feeling about the lottery until the very end when she is the one picked to be stoned to death. She states “it isn’t fair, it isn’t right” (Jackson. 54). It is the first time she voiced her opinion even though she felt this way all along. Lori Voth states in “Analysis of “The Lottery” “Jackson uses the protagonist, Mrs. Hutchinson, to show an individual consumed by hypocrisy and weakness”. She knew it was inhuman to murder someone but was too weak to say so. Jig also goes along with her lover, not for her own happiness but for his. She states “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway. 200). She agrees to get an abortion even though it is not what she wants but what he wants. She is also too weak to tell him she wants to keep the baby. She is fearful of losing the man. Both women are cowardly.
The Lottery is a story based on a village's tradition. The lottery is defined as a very collective act of murder. The tradition of the lottery is the coming together of the whole town, on one specific day, for certain hours to draw one person’s name to see who will get to get killed by getting stoned. With this act of killing someone is making it a collective act of murder because they could disobey the tradition and not chose someone but they chose to kill one person to make themselves live longer. “It is not fair, it is not right” is coming from Mrs. Hutchinson who at the end of the story was the person who wins the lottery and gets stones thrown at her after she said these words thus making it a collective act of murder. Another reason because it’s not like they are killing that person on accident they are killing another human being on purpose to save their life.
In detail, “The Lottery” is about standing up for what is right is not always the easiest path. For example, “‘Some places have already quit lotteries’ Mrs. Adams said.” Another quote that goes along with that is, “‘Nothing but trouble in that,’ Old Man Warner said stoutly. ‘Pack of young fools.’ (paragraph 33-34). The reason why this relates to the text because this is the time that Tessie Hutchinson could have stood up and told everyone that it is not right to have this lottery, instead she kept quiet because she knew it was not going to be easy standing up to the whole town and saying that what they are doing is not right. She could have stood up more than she did, instead she chose to wait until it was her who won the lottery. Another example to support the theme is, “Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, ‘You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!’(paragraph 45), another quote that goes along with it is, “‘Be a good sport Tessie,’ Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “All of us took the same chance.” (paragraph 46). The reason why these two pieces of evidence supports the theme, standing up for what’s right may not always be the easiest path, is by showing that Tessie does stand up. Maybe she is not standing up for the fact that