Irony, Symbolism, And Setting In The Lottery

Shirley Jackson is often regarded as one of the most brilliant authors of the twentieth century. Born in San Francisco in 1916, she spent the majority of her adolescence writing short stories and poetry (Allen). While she is known best for her supernatural stories, one of her most popular works is a short story called “The Lottery”. The lottery takes place in a small village in which once a year on June 24th, the town population is gathered. After the gathering, there is a drawing to see which family is chosen, after the family is chosen, another drawing takes place to see who is stoned to death. In the New Yorker's magazine book review hailed “The Lottery” as “one of the most haunting and shocking short stories of modern America and is one of the most frequently anthologized” (Jackson). This review stems heavily from Jackson’s brilliant use of irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing. However, perhaps what truly stands out is how Jackson is able to wrap all of those elements together as a way to show an overarching theme of the corruption that exists in human nature. While the real source of “The Lottery’s” inspiration is unclear, there has been heavy speculation that the roots lie heavily in the actions of the holocaust and the actions that took place during World War II. Regardless of the source material, a general consensus can be made that the plot of the lottery is a dark reflection of human actions.

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 The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective.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

    "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

The Lottery is a ritual with little to no history behind it, yet people blindly follow this tradition because they long for a purpose and place which in turn causes them to perform questionable practices. The Lottery is a way to symbolize the human desire for blind adherence to a tradition or ritual, even when it involves pointless violence. Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, effectively portrays this desire when he declares “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery.’” (Jackson 395) The morality of this tradition has gone unquestioned for over seven decades, showing how the human desire for tradition veils the need to question it.

One small slip of paper can determine your life or death, what would you do to keep your family safe? In the short story ‘The Lottery’ written by Shirley Jackson there is a very important piece of irony that is used in the story to act as suspense to the reader and maybe even a surprise. Irony is when words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. The type of irony that is present in the story is, situational irony, which is something that occurs when what happens is the opposite of what is expected or appropriate. The story is ironic because, are main character in the story, Tessie, is totally okay with the thought of the lottery, but when her family gets chosen she automatically

Shirley Jackson’s famous short story, “The Lottery,” was published in 1948 and remains to this day one of the most enduring and affecting American works in the literary canon. “The Lottery” tells the story of a farming community that holds a ritualistic lottery among its citizens each year. Although the text initially presents audiences with a close-knit community participating in a social event together on a special day, the shocking twist at the work’s end—with the death of the lottery’s “winner” by public stoning—has led to its widespread popularity, public outcry and discussion, and continued examination in modern times (Jackson). One potential critical theory that can be applied to Jackson’s “The Lottery” is the reader-response

Traditions are widespread among many different people and cultures; It is an explanation for acting without thinking. Not all traditions are a good thing, though, and blindly following them can lead to harsh consequences. The villagers in a small town in “The Lottery” gather together annually to participate in this tradition, where one person in the town is randomly chosen in a drawing to be violently stoned to death by citizens. It has been around for seventy-seven years and everyone partakes in it. People always attend, showing the importance of tradition amongst the society. However, in the short story, “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses many literary devices to show that traditions are not always meant to be followed.

Winning isn’t always what it seems. Hearing the word “lottery” usually develops a positive connotation in the mind of the reader, associating it with pleasure, good fortune and happiness; however, in “The Lottery,” the winner is rewarded by being brutally stoned by her neighbors and believed friends. “The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, highlights how complacently our society reacts to the pointless brutality and inhumanity towards others. To demonstrate this, Jackson examines social constructs, women’s place and how instead focusing too strongly on strict traditions, we need to reexamine these rituals to determine their necessity and if they are still beneficial to society. Jackson uses seemingly ordinary details about

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story based on a fictional village that holds a macabre ritual. Although the regularity was not stated within the tale, the story speaks of a regular gathering of the village folk to conduct some form of lottery. In a disturbing twist of the tale, the winner of the lottery doesn’t get to receive a prize, but instead, suffer the indignity of being killed by getting stoned to death by friends, family, and neighbors. Mrs. Hutchinson is the unfortunate soul, who, despite her pleas and protests has no option but accept her fate. In a similarly titled story, The Lottery by Chris Abani talks about an incident he witnessed when he went to the market with his aunt. In the story, Abani explains how he

    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

Traditions have always filled our world, some lasting for even hundreds and thousands of years. However long these aged customs have persisted, their reason for being sustained was not always beneficial or logical, and even instead harmful. Author Shirley Jackson conveys this same idea by utilizing forms of symbolism to present the theme of what effects follow when blindly following flawed tradition in her short story, “The Lottery.” Despite the story’s more older age, its message can still be seen to this very day.

When Shirley Jackson published “The Lottery,” she was treated rather poorly by a plethora of people and received many letters berating her for her writing Among those people was her own mother, who believed that she was criticizing the lifestyle of many Americans. The Union of South Africa even banned the story all together. Most people thought that the author was criticizing rural life, but the purpose of the story is not to attack small town, USA, but instead to show readers the malice of human nature. Through the use of setting, symbolism, irony, and setting, “The Lottery” has become a timeless example of how humanity’s thirst for blood gives society a tendency to adhere to a tradition without thinking

Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" alerts readers to the dangers of mindless following of traditions in a culture where they are frequently ignored. Jackson's novel, set in an initially lovely community, gradually reveals a horrifying tradition that exposes the dark foundation of common knowledge. Jackson skillfully uses her plot, characters, and a symbolic buildup of tension to examine the fundamental themes of conformity and rebellion while criticizing the dangers of unquestioning traditions. The story's important lesson becomes clear as we dig deeper into the unsettling lottery ceremony and the townspeople's unsettling acceptance of it: the necessity of critically analyzing the customs, ideologies, and behaviors shaping our society.

For The lottery would you believe that you put your name in a black box and your family gets picked and you get a black dot your gonna believe “Oh My Lord Did I Win Anything”. Nope, you're gonna get stoned to the face and to the body and your already dead to the point you even realize it. It is amazing to think about the irony in this story for years, these people have made a tradition out of this and the people are fine with it, Don’t you think it could have gone another or different way. Like For example instead of getting stoned they could have just banished or send you away and never to be seen again but let me fill you in on the story so basically imagine this, There is a clear and sunny morning the flowers were blossoming and it was a

In a work of literature that holds such a large emphasis on tradition, it should come as no surprise that family is a large factor as well. However, in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the ties that family binds one with can seem almost restrictive. The ritualistic tradition of the lottery, in which members of the community draw lots to see who wins, has long been a part of their society. So much so, that it is seen as a normal part of their lives and anyone who questions it, is deemed as a “pack of crazy fools” by Old Man Warner because “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 413). The fact that this society blindly follows such ancient traditions, tests the bonds of loyalty in family, especially when one takes into account that the winner of the lottery gets stoned to death.