Staying With Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Traditions are based all around us. Today’s society has many traditions like family traditions, holiday traditions, southern traditions, and so many more. Although most traditions are harmless, it is not always best to follow tradition. Sometimes following tradition can be dangerous. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” villagers participate in an annual drawing, and the winner gets stoned. The villagers are blind to how cruel and brutal it is because of their commitment to this tradition and to that society. Fear is what is keeping this village from breaking such an act. The fear of actually giving up this tradition and society is what is keeping this brutal act existent. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a perfect example that following tradition

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.

Shirley Jackson also utilizes literary devices to good effect in “The Lottery,” especially that of symbolism. By keeping the setting devoid of any identifying details, Jackson frees the reader to imagine that it could be any place. The only constraints that the author places on her readers’ creativity are that the town is decidedly rural, perhaps narrowing the critique to the cultural scene most frequently associated with small town America. Other symbols include the box from which the lottery slips are drawn (an old and black object which heralds death), stoning as a method of execution (a particularly old and excruciating way to kill someone), and ritual itself (a series of often ill contemplated actions for which one needs no particular reason to follow). All of these, with their marked reference to age, clearly refer to tradition.

Dystopian stories works depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction”. Often these stories have many themes that can relate to the real world. In the dystopian story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, many themes such as false hopes,hypocrisy, ritual, and mob mentality are expressed throughout the story. In the story everyone in a small village gather in the town square for the lottery, whoever gets chosen gets stoned to death by everyone in the town including friends and loved ones. The use of different themes throughout the story relate to the literary devices and universal storytelling elements setting, verbal irony, symbolism, and social cohesion.

Within the first few lines of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" we are faced with such adjectives as clear, sunny, fresh and warmth. She goes on to paint a picture of small children just out of school for the summer, as the townspeople gather for the annual Lottery. This leads us to believe that the rest of the story is as cheery as the summer day initially described. We as the readers are virtually unaware of the horrible senseless events that lie ahead. Through the use of symbolism Shirley Jackson reveals the underlying decay of ethics that results from an empty ritual followed by narrow-minded people.

Shirley Jackson uses several literary devices in “The Lottery” to assist in portraying the theme of her story. Several examples of the devices used are: foreshadowing, imagery, symbolism, motif, tone, and dialogue. The main devices seen within the theme of the story however, include: dialogue, motif, symbolism, and imagery. Throughout the story the theme could be interpreted several different ways, however, the main idea is tradition. Tradition is sacred to many and meaningless to some. In “The Lottery”, tradition is something upheld only for the sake of it being tradition, no matter how unordinary or extravagant it may seem. These terms provide insight and textual evidence to help the reader determine and understand the story’s theme, being

The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson had many elements of both irony and basic innocence that has been used to thicken the plot. For example, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” The opening sentence makes the reader feel a sense of glow and positive spirits, but the main aspect of the story shows a more gothic feel. Another part of the story that seemed to be of pure intentions was the title itself “The Lottery”, when most people think of the lottery it is generally thought to be a good thing. It is given a twisted meaning to enrich the plot; initially the title gave a sense of innocence but it later proved to be

Through her use of setting, which on the surface appears to be light-hearted and commonplace, Jackson masks and emphasizes the shock and horror of the story’s ending. Jackson first depicts a light and merry setting when she describes the day of the lottery. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” By detailing the day in a bubbly way, Jackson veils the idea that nothing bad

Shirley Jackson is to be considered one of the best authors of the 1900’s. Her style of writing reeled in readers from all different ages. She can be creepy, hilarious, and inspiring to the eyes that see her words. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, she keeps the reader on the edge of their seat wanting to continue reading beyond the final word. She uses literary devices to shape her story to grab her readers attention all throughout the story. By using these literary devices, Shirley Jackson shows off her dark and twisted side as well as her fantastic writing style to emphasize why she is one of the writers of her generation.

Americans day after day live much of their lives following time-honored traditions that are passed down from one generation to another. From simple everyday cooking and raising children, to holidays and other family rituals, tradition plays a significant role on how they go by there everyday lives. In Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," the citizens of a small farming town follow one such tradition. A point is made regarding human nature in relation to tradition. The story begins on a beautiful summer afternoon. The town's citizens are eager, gathering in the town square in order to take part in the yearly lottery. With the story focused around one particular family, the Hutchinsons, who

Shirley Jackson wrote the story “The Lottery” back in 1948 to show us how ridiculous it could be to blindly follow certain traditions. In this story the author uses symbolisms to warn and prepare the reader about the gruesome ending of the lottery. There are a lot of symbols in the story and the main are the items, the lottery and the character names.

Families turn on each other and themselves in Shirley Jackson's 1948 "The Lottery," which shocks its readers by showing a town that holds an annual lottery to select a person to stone to death. The story begins on a "clear and sunny" day with

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a story of an unusual town caught in a trap of always following tradition, even when it is not in their best interest. Jackson uses symbols throughout the story that relate to the overall theme. This helps the reader clearly understand her main message. Jackson uses setting, tone and symbols to convey a theme to her audience. By doing so she creates significant connections to the theme using old man Warner and the black box as examples.

The Lottery has many conspicuous themes and symbols as well as some that are not so facilely overt. One of the main themes to this story is tradition and how it looses its meaning as time goes by. When the paramountcy of a tradition or a ritual gets disoriented, it can be perilous. The tone that Shirley Jackson uses in “The Lottery” is not plenarily consistent with the themes mentioned above. She utilizes a light tone, but there’s a dark ending and a dark theme to this story.

            Shirley Jackson wrote “The Lottery” in 1948 with a purpose in mind. Upon hearing the title, many readers think about a lottery in people want to win due to the fact that they could win millions of dollars. However, this is not the case in Jackson’s version where the lottery is one in which the winner is stoned to death. Jackson’s focus in this story is that society is flawed, imperfect, and sometimes stuck in the past. She declared that her purpose was “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson 239). Her goal is for the reader to notice these traits of society upon evaluating the plot, point of view, and