Stylistic Devices In 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.

Figurative language is a strategy that authors have used over the years to give the reader different perspectives on the piece that they are reading about. In her short Story, “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson writes about a small town that has a tradition known as the lottery. The way that the lottery works, is that there is black box with pieces of paper in it. The pieces of paper have the family names of every family in town. The last name standing then has to go into an elimination round with the people within the family. Each family member draws out of the black box, and the family member that pulls the slip of paper with the black dot gets stoned to death. In her short story, Jackson utilizes symbolism in the form of Old Man Warren, the black box and the pile of stones to demonstrate how tradition can be blinding without even knowing it.

When most people play the lottery today, they think about having wealth. Generally, people who win are happy about it whether they win one dollar or a million. The lottery in our society has grown to support education and it is often worth several million dollars. Usually, the winner of the lottery gains a lot of recognition for the money they win. But what would happen if there was a small town where people held a yearly lottery in which the “winner” was the member of the town who was not sacrificed? This question is answered in Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery.” In reading this story, and reading literary criticism about the story, there were many symbols and much symbolism in this story.

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.

1) The tone, mood or atmosphere in the story begins with that of happiness and euphoria, by setting us up with a wonderful day that most everyone would enjoy.

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.

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.

    "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

In her story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson manages to catch the readers’ attention and ultimately shock them with an unexpected ending; all of which help her emphasize her critique toward the dark side of human nature and the evil that resides, sometimes, in those who we less expect it from. Jackson uses symbolism throughout the story that helps her set the mood and also makes the readers wonder and analyze the senseless violence and cruelty in their own lives.

Society today sees the lottery as an easy way to win a ginormous amount of cash just by buying a little slip of paper with a combination of numbers. The irony that Shirley Jackson uses in her short story, The Lottery, is used to the extreme by not only the title being ironic, but also within the story. The lottery is seen as a way to gain cash, but the ironic part of the title is that the reader sees it and thinks that the story will be about someone winning a big prize, yet the winner is sentenced to being stoned to death. Within the story, Shirley Jackson writes about how one member of the community ultimately chooses who wins the lottery. Another ironic thing about someone chooses the winner is that one of the communities sons picked his own father to win the lottery. Linda Wagner-Martin analyzes The Lottery and its irony by writing, “Bringing in the small children as she does, from early in the story (they are gathering stones, piling them up where they will be handy, and participating in the ritual as if it were a kind of play), creates a poignance not only for the death of Tessie the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to the youngest Hutchinson, little Dave. Having the child draw his own slip of paper from the box reinforces the normality of the occasion, and thereby adds to Jackson's irony. It is family members, women and children, and fellow residents who are being killed through this orderly, ritualized process. As Jackson herself once wrote, "I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story based on a fictional village that holds a macabre ritual. Although the regularity was not stated within the tale, the story speaks of a regular gathering of the village folk to conduct some form of lottery. In a disturbing twist of the tale, the winner of the lottery doesn’t get to receive a prize, but instead, suffer the indignity of being killed by getting stoned to death by friends, family, and neighbors. Mrs. Hutchinson is the unfortunate soul, who, despite her pleas and protests has no option but accept her fate. In a similarly titled story, The Lottery by Chris Abani talks about an incident he witnessed when he went to the market with his aunt. In the story, Abani explains how he

Many authors use irony to make their writings more diverse, as well as to intensify the literary elements in the story. Shirley Jackson, writer of “The Lottery”, does this in her stories in order to leave the reader in suspense and confusion with her use of situational irony. She also uses dramatic irony to give the story a grotesque twist and to cause the reader more confusion about the characters’ morals. Verbal irony is used to intensify characterization as well as give the reader an insight into the true beliefs of those in the village. The use of irony in all three forms throughout the story adds an intensity to the development of many literary elements throughout the story.

A small town, an annual lottery, and a stoning, we get so much from the story The Lottery by Shirly Jackson. Besides from being a very entertaining read The Lottery also does a great job of sharing important messages with the reader. But to determine those messages one must first determine what the story is about. When looking at the text it is evident that The Lottery is about the power of tradition, the pull to conformity, and the dark side of human nature.

When you hear the word lottery, you probably think of winning a large sum of money before being stoned to death. " The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson brings this horrible idea to life. While the overall mood of the story depicts a typical day in a small rural town, through great use of imagery and irony, one is set up for an unusual ending. Shirley Jackson uses the element of surprise. The way of the story ends is unlike anyone could predict.