New Historicism In Shirley Jackson's 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.

Almost everyone has gone to a funeral before, and they have witnessed their loved ones passing on. For example, when you go to a funeral everything is dim, bitter, and depressing. In “The Lottery” the characters have a drawing of cards on who is going to die. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses descriptive language to show how the characters won’t change tradition even though it is inhumane.

It is human nature to uphold tradition. Shirley Jackson’s  “The Lottery” display’s the issue with society unquestioning approach to institutions. The shocking tale, which takes place in a fictional unnamed town in America, convey’s the dangers of clinging to tradition and not questioning the the institutions that practice them, and just how common they occur. Accordingly, these dangers manifest in the way the characters of the story accept the process of the lottery, but do not comprehend its purpose, the older generation’s disdainful view of noncompliance with tradition, and the townspeople’s callous demeanor in stoning Mrs. Hutchinson.

Stephen L. Carter, an American law professor at Yale University said, “When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it's not self-defense. It's an execution.” In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, townspeople randomly persecute their peers. Victims of the strange tradition are guilty of no transgression other than having drawn a marked slip of paper from a box. The villagers turned against the victim without hesitation; the instant that Tessie Hutchinson chose the marked slip of paper, she lost her identity as a popular housewife and became prey. Tessie’s closest friends and family eagerly participated in the killing with as much enthusiasm as everyone else. Jackson mislead the audience by portraying a false sense of community and proved that

In order to do so, Jackson included the fact that “the whole lottery took less two hours...and still allow for villagers to get home for noon dinner”. The villagers wanted to speed through the ritual as quickly as possible in order to return back to their “normal” lives. The savageness of the lottery was just another insignificant segment in their day-to-day lives. Next, Jackson includes how the false sense of normality created by humanity is presented by its children. Jackson described how the children of the village had gathered first since “school was over for the summer and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them”. Typically, when children leave school for the summer they are happy. But for the children of the village, the beginning of summer meant that they now had to worry about the

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story that begins in a small town. In this small town, they hold a yearly lottery, but it isn’t your everyday lottery. The winner of this lottery is brutally stoned. On a fine summer day, in the early afternoon, they gather for the drawing. Mr. Summers is the leader of the lottery.

Sometimes when a certain group of people have a tradition, no matter what the tradition is, they follow it. They don’t know how it started or who started it, which is the main reason why that is a tradition. For example, why is turkey the main food at Thanksgiving dinners? Why not other meats like, beef, or lamb? We follow this tradition every year because that's how it's always been.

The book The Lottery is a short fictional story that was published 1948 in a magazine called The New Yorker. The Lottery Takes place in a small village (population 300), the date was June 27th, but could be any year, and most likely the present. The Lottery was taken on a warm day, with green grass and blooming flowers. This setting makes the story seem very eerie. With the conflict man vs society it tells that if you blindly follow something, it is dangerous.

The Lottery has a lot of different arguments that can be made but the tradition of the ceremony is a huge factor. In Jackson's story, the townspeople are blind to the profound effect of tradition upon their lives as demonstrated by the tradition, the black box, and old man Warner.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is about how the people in this village pick a piece of paper and if the paper has a black spot on it you, get stoned for the crops. The men of each family pick and Bill Hutchinson picked the black spotted piece of paper, so the whole family has to pick a piece of paper and Tessie Hutchinson got the black spotted piece of paper and she got stoned for the crops. The theme is that you need to think about your tradition before following it.

Societies have always relied on traditions in order to sustain a culture. Sometimes, a tradition can lose its original purpose, thus becoming meaningless. When traditions lose their meaning, they can cease to utilize their original purpose- or becoming outdated. The “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, highlights the detrimental causes of continuing a tradition while forgetting the original history. There are many customs that are no longer followed today because they no longer serve a purpose, however, in “The Lottery,” the outdated ceremony is still being followed by the community.

Martin Luther King Jr., the most popular civil rights activist, said: "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and the cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by good people", that grasps the central idea of a timeless story "The Lottery", by Shirley Jackson as it perfectly describes the theme of tradition throughout the story. People do many things every day without questioning themselves about why they do those things. These are habits and traditions which might seem unimportant for most of the times but play a critical role in our culture. People live most of their lives with these valuable traditions handed down to them from generation to generation, but some traditions are morally unacceptable and can cause harm. This was

When one thinks of the word tradition, the thought that often comes to mind is a positive one, such as the thought of Christmas dinner at grandma's house or church on Easter Sunday. Most of these traditions we follow blindly, meaning that it is just something we do even if we do not remember why. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a tradition is “an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought or action” (757). Since it is inherited, we do not really have a say in receiving it or not. It is expected that we continue the tradition because that’s what our ancestors have done. While following a long line of tradition can be truly great, when the reason for the tradition becomes blurred it can become harmful. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” blindness can be undesirable when following a tradition and can make that tradition dangerous.

In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the names of all family members in town are collected. They each draw a slip of paper and girl named Tessie picked a slip with a black dot and then becomes stoned to death by the other townspeople. This tradition happens every year but has this tradition gone too far? Should people rethink what they do every year as a tradition.

Many people are following crowds all over the world. Some crowds are not the best to follow yet people still follow them. Following a crowd can be misleading and can also l have consequences. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson takes place in a small village on June 27th, with about 300 people. The characters in the short story are Bobby, Harry Jones, Dickie Delacroix, Mr. Summers, and Mr. Hutchinson. The main idea of “First They Came…” by Martin Niemoller, is standing up for what is right isn’t always the easiest path. I believe that following a crowd, and standing up for what is right is not always the right path or easiest path.