Response In The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson

Sometimes people are afraid to question the social contract. A social contract is a kind of authority that should be believable. “The Lottery” was a tradition which had lasted for more than seventy years. This made the lottery a community habit. The village had already gotten used to it and obeyed it. They thought it was right, maybe because the village never went through disaster, so they insisted that peace was brought by satisfied gods. They never questioned this. A social contract is also an order that keep society balanced. A social contract cannot be denied easily, or chaos will happen. In the story “The Lottery”, people in the village believed that the lottery was an event used to bring rebirth and renewal to the village. According to “‘The Lottery’: Symbolic Tour de Force”: “ Those chosen for sacrifice were not victims but saviors who propitiate the gods” (Nebeker 104). When Mrs. Adams said some places have quit lotteries, Old Man Warner only insisted quitting can only bring them trouble, because he believed “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (Jackson 4). "Nothing but trouble in that" (Jackson 4), people in the village were afraid of making the gods angry by quitting lotteries.

Would you ever live in a place where a randomly selected person gets stoned each year? Knowing that it could be your family, friends, or even yourself? In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, it tells a story about a village where people have a tradition of the lottery once a year, whoever wins the lottery will be stoned to death. Tessie Hutchinson is a woman who forgets and arrives late at the lottery. Her husband, Bill Hutchinson draws the lottery for his family, he gets the paper with a black dot, which means one of his family member will be thrown at with stones. Bill’s family draws among themselves again, this time Tessie gets the paper with the black dot and the villagers stones her to death. The purpose of the lottery was to have good harvest, but now the

Reaction to “The Lottery” In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson there’s a tradition of a lottery once each year. Typically winning the lottery or picking the special card or paper would result in something good but not in this lottery. In this lottery there is white paper in a black box, one paper in the black box has a black dot on it. If you are the one who selects the paper with the black dot you are stoned by the rest of the people in the town and eventually killed.

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.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story littered with warnings and subtext about the dangers a submissive society can pose. While the opening is deceptively cheery and light Jackson uses an array of symbols and ominous syntax to help create the apprehensive and grim tone the story ends with. Her portrayal of the town folk as blindly following tradition represents the world during World War II when people’s failure to not mindlessly accept and heed authority lead to disastrous consequences. . Shirley Jackson uses a large array of techniques to help convey the idea that recklessly following and accepting traditions and orders can lead to disastrous consequences.

Shirley Jackson takes great care in creating a setting for the story, The Lottery. She gives the reader a sense of comfort and stability from the very beginning. It begins, "clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green." The setting throughout The Lottery creates a sense of peacefulness and tranquility, while portraying a typical town on a normal summer day.

“Sweet, Sour, and Resentful” written by Firoozeh Dumas is an article that talks about the transition his family had to make after leaving Iran for America and the weekly  gatherings they organized for their country’s citizens the fled the iranian revolution.  It often happens when people try to escape hardship from their country of citizenship to another country. Adapting to a new society or culture has not always been easy, due to the cultural differences of that country. “The Lottery”  written by Shirley Jackson, is about a small group of villagers, how they easily forgets their traditions by slowly disregarding as the time pass.

Jackson starts the story with introducing the town and people to the readers. At the beginning of the story, it doesn’t seem like anyone is going to be killed. All the villagers are calm and relaxed. Kids just got out of school; boys are gathering stones, while girls are stalking them with their eyes and talking about them. Men are talking about their jobs and smiling at each other’s jokes, and Women are gossiping. As the readers get closer and closer to the end of the story, they realize that this Lottery is very different from a normal lottery game. As much as these people look calm and relaxed on a beautiful sunny day, they are cruel, violent, harmful, and socially ill. These villagers are blindly following a tradition, which makes them to kill each other in one of the most violent ways. They are aware of their

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,

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.

The Lottery In the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the characters have different feelings about “The Lottery.” One of the characters, Tessie Hutchinson, feels that the lottery is unfair. After the first drawing, she says that their family didn’t have enough time to pick their slip and that the drawing was unfair. This scene shows that she is actually afraid for her life, since they all understand that the drawing was random and unbiased.

The women in Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," are portrayed as simple, second-class citizens, subservient to their husbands and even their sons. The men run the show: All of the lottery officials are men, and they gather first, then the women. The men speak of important things, "planting and rain, tractors and taxes." The women merely gossip. The women are not authoritative, for they have to call their children "four or five times" before they obey. Everyone condescends toward Tessie Hutchinson because she is late--late because her husband rounded up the kids and brought them to the important annual event without bothering to even fetch his wife.

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 Lottery” a short story by Shirley Jackson, features a small town during the time of their lottery. The lottery is an annual event, organized by Mr. Summers. It is a highly important time, as the whole town comes to the town square on the day of the lottery. The guidelines are quite simple: everyone takes a slip of paper out of the symbolic black box, and the slip of paper with the black mark carved on it, is the “lucky winner”. But their definition of the lottery is different一usually, a lottery is a valuable thing to win. But when Tessie Hutchinson, the “lucky winner” gets her reward by getting stoned to death by the rest of the villagers, it is clear that winning this lottery can't be a good affair... So what is the purpose of this lottery? Rather than discontinuing the lottery, the town continues with it because they don't want to upset an old tradition.

The Lottery (1948) “The lottery” story is written by Shirley Jackson, talks about a lottery goes on in a small village. On a sunny and beautiful summer day, June 27th, a village consists of about three hundred people has a town lottery. People from all ages gather in the square of the village to participate; children who recently finished their schools run around the village to collect stones and make piles in the town square. Mr. Summers is the one who runs the lottery for couple hours; he does not have any children, so he has plenty time to work for the village. Mr. Summers brings in the new black box because the original was lost longtime ago; however, he has been asking to replace the old box for years, but nobody actually respond; people say that they do not want to miss with their tradition.