preview

Literary Concepts Portray Message in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Decent Essays
Open Document
In the aim of portraying a specific message or analogy through their writing, authors include analogies and historical background to speak on an issue or topic prevalent in their communities or societies as a whole. Authors decide on literary concepts and elements that they believe allows them relay their message to their audience. This is the case for Shirley Jacksons “The Lottery.” Through implied criticism of tradition and society Shirley Jackson is able to speak on her society.
Throughout time, humanity has exhibited a wide scope of callous customs that have been freely accepted and infrequently challenged. Shirley Jacksons’ insights and observations about society are reflected in “The Lottery.” Jackson focuses on the concept of implied society. This concept is then used to aid achieve her goal of writing this story which is to indirectly comment on her society.
Implied criticism is a method in which an author uses characters and elements of their story to speak on specific ideals/ topics. In this instance, Jackson uses implied criticism to speak tradition and society Implied criticism The story takes place in a deceptively tranquil, small, American village which gives little hint to its inhabitants potential for violence. The small village is described as being a close nit group of people that hold tradition in its highest order and believe tradition to be of paramount importance.
On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional
Get Access
Related
Get Access