The Community In 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 The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective.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

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published on June 26, 1948. The story was initially met with negative critical reception due to its violent nature and portrayal of the potentially dangerous nature of human society. It was even banned in some countries. However, “The Lottery” is now widely accepted as a classic American short story and is used in classrooms throughout the country.

    "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

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.

“The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson was written in 1948. Jackson declared her purpose for writing the story was “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (pg. 250). The main characters in this story are Mr. Summers who draws the names out of the black box; Mr. Graves the post master that assist Mr. Summers; Bill Hutchinson, Tessie Hutchinson who were chosen in the lottery; and the townspeople. Jackson uses the bright and friendly atmosphere set the tone of the story. The story starts off on a clear and sunny morning on June 27th. It was a beautiful day with the flowers blooming and the grass green in a small little town of 300 people. In this town the townspeople felt strongly about upholding traditions. Tradition is important to small towns, a way to link families and generations. Following traditions blindly is what can turn into something terrible. The lottery was held each year where one person was

     The Lottery, a short story by the nonconformist author Shirley Jackson, represents communities, America, the world, and conformist society as a whole by using setting and most importantly symbolism with her inventive, cryptic writing style. It was written in 1948, roughly three years after the liberation of a World War II concentration camp Auschwitz. Even today, some people deny that the Holocaust ever happened. Jackson shows through the setting of the story, a small, close knit town, that even though a population can ignore evil, it is still prevalent in society (for example: the Harlem Riots; the terrorist attacks on September 11; the beating of Rodney King.)

In “The Lottery”, the population attends the annual lottery in the town square. Heads of households (men) are to choose a piece of paper from a black box when their last name is called. “‘Now, I’ll read the names--heads of families first--and the men come up and take a paper out of the box.’” (Jackson). If they choose the piece of paper with a black dot, the head of household puts his paper back into the box and the family members proceed to draw pieces of paper. The one producing

Over time in “The Lottery”, the true meaning behind the lottery was lost in time. When something means a lot to your family and you continue to do it every year or every day we should know why we are doing it. “It’s not the way it used to be, “Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be. (873)” This quote sums it all

Is winning the lottery meant to be fortunate and cherishing? Most would have said of course! However, sadly it is not the reality in this case scenario. In the movies “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and The Hunger Games by Gary Ross having your name being drawn is most likely one of the worst things that could happen in their small town or district. These two movies do have comparisons and differences. Both of these movies have sacrifice and tradition, on the other hand they have two extremely different protagonists known as Katniss and Tessie; which make their stories more on a distinctive perspective. “The Lottery” and The Hunger Games are similar in regards to sacrificing and traditional beliefs, although they differ by the main characters

Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is a short story published in 1948. The short story is a narrative prose that recounts an event or story about person, a place or an event (Hart, 1995). The Lottery narrates an event annually celebrated in a small rural village typically describes as one of the “small town America”, a typical description of the location in most classic literary works. The title of the story was named after the activity that takes place during the festivity. It is a game luck that requires everyone’s participation regardless of age, gender and economic status. People had to stop whatever they were doing and gather up at the town square to join in the drawings and participate in the game of chance. However, there is a different twist to the game. It is not like the traditional lottery that we encounter today. Instead, it draws the name of the person who will be sacrificed and stoned to death by the village people. This involved not only the elderlies of the community but even the younger ones. This almost mimics a ritual that is done and participated by everyone even the youth to preserve its tradition. During the drawing, the issue was raised of modifying the ritual or completely turning away from its practice because it is no longer fitting of a civilized society. This argument was in fact; the argument used in another village who agreed to stop the practice of the lottery. However, the consensus was

“The Lottery” a short story by Shirley Jackson, features a small town during the time of their lottery. The lottery is an annual event, organized by Mr. Summers. It is a highly important time, as the whole town comes to the town square on the day of the lottery. The guidelines are quite simple: everyone takes a slip of paper out of the symbolic black box, and the slip of paper with the black mark carved on it, is the “lucky winner”. But their definition of the lottery is different一usually, a lottery is a valuable thing to win. But when Tessie Hutchinson, the “lucky winner” gets her reward by getting stoned to death by the rest of the villagers, it is clear that winning this lottery can't be a good affair... So what is the purpose of this lottery? Rather than discontinuing the lottery, the town continues with it because they don't want to upset an old tradition.

“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.

It is apparent that this is almost a mechanical event. Mr. Summers gives instructions on how to proceed, but the people have done this so many times they hardly pay attention (Jackson, 250). How they go about the lottery does not seem nearly as important as making sure everyone has a chance at the prize (Jackson, 251). Truly, a western culture ideal. Jackson may be trying to highlight the fact that society has become so preoccupied with getting our share of the pie that we do not stop and consider the consequences to ourselves, or to others.

Lottery can cause a negative atmosphere, or say, mind in the society. However, there exists some opponents who think that lottery has little influence on people’s daily life and it makes no sense.

Throughout this short story the audience is introduced to many characters. Bobby Martin, Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves, Mr. Martin, Baxter, Old Man Warner, Bill Hutchinson, Tessie Hutchinson, Mrs. Delacroix, Mrs. Dunbar, Watson boy, Bill Jr., Nancy, and little Davey. These characters are a key aspect to the lottery. Each character has their own feelings about the lottery at the beginning, but what happens when the lottery affects them and their family? To understand this, the thoughts of individual characters have to be explored.