Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Shirley Jackson’s, The Lottery, is a short story that begins innocent and unassuming, but finishes with a much darker undertone. Many themes are presented in this story but one is much more prominent; you need a willingness to change tradition. Jackson created characters that represented this theme very well, as they were able to convey the traditions and emotions she was trying to show without being boring or two-dimensional. The townspeople’s refusal to change - or even completely abandon - the tradition of a lottery is what will be their downfall.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was written in 1948. The story takes place in a village square of a town on June 27th. The author does not use much emotion in the writing to show how the barbaric act that is going on is look at as normal. This story is about a town that has a lottery once a year to choose who should be sacrificed, so that the town will have a plentiful year for growing crops. Jackson has many messages about human nature in this short story. The most important message she conveys is how cruel and violent people can be to one another. Another very significant message she conveys is how custom and tradition can hold great power over people. Jackson also conveys the message of

Andrew Lansley once said “Peer pressure and social norms are powerful influences on behavior, and they are classic excuses.” Most people tend to follow cultural customs because they have grown with them or it has been forced onto them with factors such as parents or their environment. However, is it always right to follow these customs even if they are in fact considered wrong? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a short story about the cultural norms of a small community and its annual lottery ritual; a stoning. Jackson overthrows the story by making the lottery a corrupt occurrence rather than a victory. The reader would probably think that the “winner” of the lottery would be benefited but in this case the victory was not so delightful. In her short story “The Lottery” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

In some ways, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson could be seen as controversial. Within the first paragraph, we are left with two main questions; “what is the lottery?” and “why does it happen?” A major theme that answers the first question is all about tradition. Yes, the lottery is a tradition in many towns. No one has ever questioned this tradition, even though it is quite inhumane. In all honesty, you could compare this story very well to The Hunger Games just because of what this tradition consists of. Imagine being in a town of around three hundred people and having your life put on the line. The lottery itself comes down to all of the townspeople meeting up, and each family name is read by Mr. Summers, and the head of the family

«The lottery» is an allegory which was written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. In it, she used an irony to show how inane could be some traditions and people who essentially follow them. The lottery - is the ritual when all people from the small village crowd together and Mr. Summers, who enjoys devoting civic activities, organizes this event. He and his assistant make a small piece of paper and one of these has a black dot. They put it into the shabby black box, after Mr. Summers call head of household to determine who will «win» the lottery. But the winner should not be happy, because all other citizens will stone the winner to death. People do it annually, because they afraid that the harvest could be poor. Everyone must participate, regardless of gender and age. This short story contains a lot of different characters to explain how belief in something abnormal of previous generations can strongly affect traditions and consider morality.

The author of “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson decided it was important to write this short story in order to inform the readers about another dimension, where a certain common tradition gets prized with something obscure. Some readers can be shocked when reading this story, because they might be surprised and even shocked with the themes that play along in the storyline. This short story “The Lottery” was so controversial at the time, because in the date it was published in June 24, 1948 there were so many themes from the stories that could relate to past events or even event that were taking place at the time.

In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” a small village is preparing for an annual drawing, a tradition carried out for generations. During this ritual, the head of each household draws a blank piece of paper out of a black box. One piece of paper is marked with a single black dot and if chosen, the outcome is having the winner’s entire household draw out of the box. Whoever chooses the black dot out of the household is stoned to death by the entire village. In this instance, a husband wins to which his wife protests, and then she is the ultimate victim who is sacrificed. This story includes many literary elements like foreshadowing, warning of a future event, symbolism, symbols used in the story to represent ideas,and irony, when the contrary to what is expected to happen, occurs. Jackson uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony to prove the theme that it is foolish and barbaric to blindly follow tradition.

“The Lottery” was written in 1948 by Shirley Jackson. Mrs. Jackson, born in 1916, was known for her tales of horror and supernatural novels. She and her literary critic husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman lived in a little town called Bennington, Vermont. Mrs. Jackson was not accepted by the town. Her novels, especially “The Lottery”, revealed the dark side of human nature. Stephen King honored Shirley Jackson by dedicating his book Firestarter to her.

Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery is set in a small village who relies deeply on their crops. This story is about a sacrifice that takes place every year in which the heads of households draw for their families in order to see who “wins” and saves the town. The readers grow close to a character named Tessie who decides to speak her mind when it’s too late. In the end, the townsfolk realise that what comes around goes around.

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, we observe a community that is absorbed in their rituals and traditions. In this society, they feel bound to their traditions and are even willing to abandon some of humanity’s deepest morals. The basic question of right and wrong is presented as our morals are disregarded in Jackson’s tradition based society. Their past is what they look towards when regarding their future. This community feels tied to their fading tradition and refuses to evolve even when everyone around them is. Consequently, they have become numb to the acts they commit countless times. Every generation is ingrained with these ideals and are expected to never waver from them.

Shirley Jackson wrote a short story called "The Lottery". It was about small village and its village people of roughly around 300 people and every year they have a tradition where all the townspeople gather around a black box and have to pull a piece of paper out to see what family was to draw again. Then once the family was picked they had to put as many pieces of paper in the box as they have in their family and do it all over again. Once every family member picked out of the box, they had to open and see who go the paper with the black dot. The family member with the paper with the black dot was to be stoned.People all over the world follow traditions, but the real questions is do they know the meaning behind the tradition.

“The Lottery,” the short story by Shirley Jackson. The plot is not too hard to understand except that you do not realize what is going on until the very end. It talks about the people gather in the village square. Then they seem to be gathering up stones especially the children, and then there is the actual lottery. That means a drawing where somebody is going to “win.” Now, it turns out that after everybody pulls out their pieces of paper, and there is this elaborate ritual where family unit go and then the actual family members draw their numbers. But finally, Tessie Hutchinson, one of the house wives, one of the mothers in the community, gets the paper with the black dot on it, and she does not win anything good. In fact she is marked

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” illustrates several aspects of the darker side of human nature. The townspeople in Jackson’s “The Lottery” unquestioningly adhere to a tradition which seems to have lost its relevance in their lives. The ritual that is the lottery shows how easily and willingly people will give up their free will and suspend their consciences to conform to tradition and people in authority. The same mindless complacency and obedience shown by the villagers in Jackson’s story are seen in human behavior throughout history and are still visible in current events seen today. Religion and higher authority are able to convince people to commit horrendous crimes against other human beings without hesitation or guilt. In religion, rituals can be a substitute for taking responsibility for one’s actions or thinking for oneself. The behavior shown by the villagers can also be compared to human beings cruel enjoyment of the suffering of other human beings. This side of human nature dates back to the scapegoat method used during the Biblical times (Whittier 351). “The Lottery” is more of a hypocritical tradition than a ritual at the point we witness in the story, but out of respect and fear for tradition, the townsfolk are more than willing to commit an act of mass violence as a scapegoat method, simply for the sake of a tradition.

Ever wondered what perfect society would be like? At some point everyone has dreamt of a society where there is total peace and equality for all peoples alike. When reading “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, she describes what most people would think of as the perfect small town setting. In the town, families and friends get together every year to hold an annual lottery in the town’s square. However; this is not an average lottery and it turns out that this small village has a very dark secret. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula LE Guin , is more imaginary than anything else. In Omelas there are green hills and beautiful meadows. People throw big parties with all the food and drink you could possibly consume. But this perfect society in the green hills has a dirty secret too. There is a small child about the age of 12 kept in a closet, and that child must bear all the pain for the entire city of Omelas. Without the child the city is no different than any other, and some of its citizens can’t forget about the secret and choose to leave. In these stories both authors discuss the idea of a perfect world and challenge the reader to consider what a utopia really is. After reading these two articles, the authors show you there cannot be a utopia if even a single person is suffering, which is also why there can’t be a perfect society because of human nature.

When a person thinks of the lottery they think of something good. They fantasize about all of the luxurious things they can now afford, and moving into a fancy new neighborhood. While playing games, there is a winner and a loser. The Hunger Games and “The Lottery” certainly include both. When some people play the lottery they gamble away their life’s savings with hopes of winning three or four times as much as they own. The lottery in this case is more of a death pool. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” shares infinite similarities with Suzanne Collins trilogy The Hunger Games.