Social Influence from Authority in The Lottery by Chris Abani

In the short story, The Lottery, Jackson applies Mr. Summers’ character to highlight his significant role in the village’s life as a whole and more particularly in the lottery. It is also significant to note that the character is also a deep irony in relation to the plot of the story. Mr. Summers is the most notable figure and an important person of all the people who manage the lottery. The lottery is held on June 27th, which is noted as being a full summer day. He is responsible for running most of the things that the village collectively performs since he has the energy and time and is devoted to the civic activities. This is one of the rationales why his character is pivotal to the development of the plot of the story.

Tradition; it is the back bone of every culture and civilization. It is what keeps the beliefs, philosophies, and activities of societies alive, to be passed down from generation to generation. However not all traditions are practiced with pure intentions.  Some activities become so routine, people don’t know a life outside of them. Societies become so accustomed to “tradition” that they will participate in pastimes without  questioning the ethics or morals of the situation. Ultimately when tradition takes the place of a rationalizing mind the outcome can be incredibly dangerous. The role of tradition is an underlying theme in the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, forcing readers to ask themselves “At what point do

“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

The idea of winning a lottery is associated with luck, happiness and anticipation of good things. In Shirley Jackson's story, " The Lottery", this is not the case. The irony of the story is that the winner of the lottery gets stoned to death by everyone else in the town. The story is very effective because it examines certain aspects of human nature.

    "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 author of “The Lottery” wrote this story “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson 211). This story reflects human behavior in society to show how although rules, laws or traditions do not make sense, people follow them. Throughout the story the three main symbols of how people blindly follow senseless traditions were the lottery itself, the color black, and the hesitation that people had towards the prize.

In the story, "the lottery," by Shirley Jackson. The author claims about the lottery in a unique way. She creates a very shocking and horrifying situation through the use of characterization, setting, and the theme of the individual society. She writes as if the events taking place are common to any town, she also talks about how the village lottery completes in a brutal murder each year. Village people have strange rituals that show how dangerous tradition can be when innocent villager believe or follow it blindly. As I was reading this story they keep talking about the lottery in a harmless way because before we get to know about kind of lottery they are organizing, the villager and their preparation seems harmless.

Nebeker, Helen E. “The Lottery’: Symbolic Touch De Force” Short Story Criticism, edited by Jenny Cromie, vol. 39, Gale Group, 2000, 75 vols, pp. 187-90. Originally published in American Literature, vol. 46, no. 1, March, 1974, pp. 100-07.

In “The Lottery”, author Shirley Jackson portrays the importance of violence and inhumanity that is being shown throughout the community and how the townspeople play a major roll in it. Shirley Jackson believes that violence is huge within this community and she also believes that the community isn’t aware of their actions. Every year on June 27th, the community gathers at the town's square to attend the lottery. The folks who run this lottery are Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves (The Postmaster). Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves will randomly announce names from the lottery box. If the name announced was on the paper the family member selected, then the audience would throw stones at them until they were dead.

Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” warns readers of the consequences that come from blindly following tradition. She builds upon the fact that the people in the town follow the tradition of The Lottery without questioning it because it is tradition. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson uses suspenseful foreshadowing and portrays her characters as ignorant in order to suggest that blindly following traditions can lead to disastrous and even fatal consequences. Jackson creates a suspenseful setting in her story by inserting small hints of the lottery’s outcome in character’s dialogue and by dragging out the final lottery drawing to expand on the idea of how unfair the the tradition of the lottery is. Jackson expands on the idea that all

there is quiet conversation between friends. Mr. Summers, who runs the lottery, arrives with a black box. The original box was lost many years ago, even before Old Man Warner, the oldest person in the village, can remember. Each year Mr. Summers suggests that they make a new box, but no one is willing to go against tradition. The people were willing to use slips of paper instead of woodchips as markers, as the village had grown too large for the wood chips to fit in the box. A list of all the families and households in the village is made, and several matters of who will draw for each family are decided. Mr. Summers is sworn in as the official of the lottery in a specific ceremony. Some people remember that there used to be a song and salute as part of the ceremony, but these are no longer performed. Tessie Hutchinson arrives in the square late because she has forgotten what day it was. She joins her husband and children before the lottery can begin. Mr. Summers explains the lottery’s rules: each family will be called up to the box and draw a slip of paper. One of the villagers tells Old Man Warner that the people of a nearby village are thinking about ending the lottery. Old Man Warner laughs at the idea. He believes that giving up the lottery would cause nothing but trouble, and a loss of civilized behavior. A woman responds that some places have already given up the lottery. Everyone finishes drawing, and each

In today's society the actions taken in this story would have been considered morally wrong and punishment for committing these crimes would be handed down by the court system. The judicial system of today would punish them with incarceration or death by leathal injection. This legal system was actually illegal, more of a marshal law. These people were ruling themselves. The best example is Mr. Summers, he made it a happy gathering, conducted all the civil activities, and then was also the executioner. He brings with all his justice and ruling, death. The purpose of the lottery is to weed out the people and learn the cycle of life is to accept democracy.

Every year a town in the middle of nowhere has a tradition to annually hold a lottery. The whole town has to participate in this lottery . Whoever wins the lottery gets stoned to death. In the story, Tessie Hutchinson gets stoned after getting picked in the lottery. An analysis of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson through the historical and feminist lenses, suggests that the story is really about how the lottery is controlling lives by having male dominance in the town, a blind following that people follow , and using someone as a scapegoat to blame everything evil in the town.

Shirley Jackson's story, The Lottery is about a group of towns people who meet every year on the 27th of June. On this day a stoning takes place, as it washes away the sins of everyone that lived in the village. However, should the tradition of the stoning be changed when it becomes your time?

When gossip of neighboring villages giving up the lottery wisps through the crowd, the notion seems unthinkable to the elders in this story (Jackson, 250). It is as if their foundational principals have been attacked by the idea (Jackson, 250). This imagery may serve to portray a climate of self-entitlement in our humanity.