Summary Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the

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.

    "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

Despite their differences in their approach to characterization, both Joyce Carol Oates and Shirley Jackson managed to craft haunting short stories, whose characters quickly bond to your brain before they are quickly ripped away.

How can the villagers kill a person they know for a long time every single year just because of a silly tradition that has been alive for generations? It is pretty bizarre how the villagers still cope with traditions that can kill themselves any year. Almost everyone who participated in this lottery was extremely nervous showing their fear of death. A tall boy in this crowd drew for his mother and him, he risked his life with a higher chance of getting killed. This shows the love he has for his mother. Mr. Summer said “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it”, foreshadowing the death of the tall boy’s father. The tall boy might have thrown pebbles on his father, leading to his demise and a tough future for

“The Lottery” In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” the story elements interact with each other to give a twist and surprise ending to the reader. One of the story elements that helped create a surprise ending is the setting. For instance, Jackson says that on the day that the lottery took place it “... was clear and sunny, with the warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson 10). From reading this passage, the reader would get a good feeling, believing the story has a happy ending. For an example, the adjective Jackson used, “sunny.”

First of all the story Lottery was made by Shirley Jackson her point was to tell people what the lottery was like back in the old days. The author wrote this story on her point of view, and by that I mean she probably has seen someone that had won the lottery and got rocks thrown at them, or maybe it happened to her but, she is trying to inform people what the lottery was like back then vs modern days.“The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box nowhere resting on the stool had been put to use even before Old Man Warner, oldest man in town was born.”“At one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story written in 1948. Due to World War II ending around this time, her story took some strong criticism. The people at that time wanted uplifting stories, and this story is the very opposite because of its underlying theme of tradition and conformity. “The Lottery” shows that no matter the tradition or belief, people will not stray from their daily routine because humans are creatures of habit, and are scared to wonder from what we know. Jackson writes by providing the reader with little details at first.Then making the reader put the information all together to come to the conclusion that people will never change. Jackson then creates symbols of tradition and conformity by adding details, using specific objects, and”The Lottery” itself.

It is safe to say to say that one person does not deserve harm for the betterment of a society or a community. In the short-stories, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, each display similarities when it comes to sacrifice for better. Although each society believes in the practice, in the story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” the citizens believes the practice of locking a little boy away in a closest will benefit them to live happily and prosper. In “The Lottery” a town of people hold a yearly assembly where a person of the community is randomly chosen to be stoned for the hope of more crops in the fall. Each of the stories display sacrifice in their theme, as well as people in the community who believe that the practice of sacrifice is wrong, and the belief that the benefits for all come from pain and suffering of one single individual.

The short story by Shirley Jackson should have been published. Your story "The Lottery" should have been published because the theme makes the reader be more interested while reading the short story. The first time reading this short story and reactions were puzzled at first but then as far as reading and understanding the theme the short story was more interesting and made your readers think about their families and problem they had. The evidence and reactions connect back to the claim because the reaction they had made them interested and wanting to read more based on these reactions and the way the short story really caught your attention as well.

The story started when people are gathered every end of June for the annual lottery ritual in a small village. All the head of each family are required to grab a slip a slip of paper in the box that is placed in the middle of the village. The in charge of the lottery was Mr. Summer. The conflict occurs when Tessie found out that her husband Bill was the center of the Villager’s attention. There is something on the paper that he picked. Because of that Tessie can’t even accept it and she keep on yelling that it is not fair. She believed that the time given to Bill was not enough to pick the paper that he wanted from Mr. Summer. The entire Hutchinson family, are

Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” serves as an allegory regarding humankinds inherent to be cruel and society’s ability to inure to violence. The author’s use of a third-person dramatic narrative combined with strong themes, symbols and irony clearly supports the lesson Jackson was trying to portray. Jackson’s short story shows how easy it is to be hostile when a group of villagers with a herd mentality blindly follow an outdated tradition and that evil knows no boundaries.

“Every group feels strong, once it has found a scapegoat” (Mignon McLaughlin, 1913). A scapegoat is someone who is blamed for all the faults and corruptions that others have committed. In history, there are lots of scapegoat examples, the most popular being; Jesus Christ and the Jews in the Second World War. In the short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson used persecution and tradition to demonstrate how scapegoating justified unfair killing. Both of these aspects relate to the World War that preceded only a couple years before the story was written. The persecution was blind and done once a year as a tradition that everyone expected to happen.

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 wrote The Lottery in the late 1940’s. It seems as though the village is just having a regular annual celebration. Everyone is dressed and talking casually. The kids are playing, gathering and protecting stones. The atmosphere Jackson portrays is easy going.