The Lottery: A Short Story

It was the morning of June 27th, ten years after Tessie Hutchinson was stoned to death. So much had happened during this decade after her death. Horace Dunbar was stoned last year, and Mrs. Graves the year before. The village now consisted of about 500 citizens, and with the village growing every year the lottery became more and more necessary for the town to prosper. But still people doubted the value of the lottery and tried to preclude it. Back when the year Tessie was stoned, the Adams were talking about how other towns were giving up the lottery. Every year there were a larger amount of people opposing the lottery.

The next aspect of human nature that the author looks at, and that adds to the effectiveness of the story, is denial. As soon as her husband has drawn the black dot, Mrs. Hutchinson begins to complain that her husband wasn't given enough time to choose. She was content to allow someone else to die, but when it was going to be someone in her family she began to complain about procedure. This is something almost everyone would do. Denial is typical of humans, and the author uses it to make the story more effective.

    "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

Soon the men began to gather. Surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk.(1)

In Shirley Jackson’s  “The Lottery”, There is an annual lottery game in this village on June 27th of every year, this lottery is a ritual that has been in the village for long since, everyone in the village would gather at the time square to participate in it. Mr.Sumner, the lottery official will then brings out the black box and declared the lottery open and states all the rules, “Now, I’ll read the names--heads of families first--and the men com out and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?” (BBR 93). One of this papers will have a black spot that is put on by the coal company owner, whoever gets the spotted paper with the black dot wins the lottery and will be stoned to death.

“The Lottery” takes place on a warm sunny summer day of June 27, 1948 in New England. The small farming village all gather around ten o’clock around the post office and the bank for the yearly harvest for the lottery. This village is very small compared to other villages, this particular village has only about three hundred people and we know that because the lotter only takes about two hours where other take days. The

The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a town’s tradition of ‘the lottery’. It takes place in an ordinary town, but has a tradition of a lottery in which the ‘winner’ gets stoned. Most people in the town want to keep the lottery, as it is tradition and is important to the town’s history. Other lines in the story suggest the town’s people seem like they want to stop it. A lesson the story suggests is tradition is not always a good thing.

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

The Lottery is a story that explains how a small village celebrates a specific tradition which is called “The Lottery”, when the word “lottery” comes in mind I thought that the story would be talking about someone being picked in the village to receive or win a big prize or someone who was being assigned to be a specific person in the village. But that's not the story at all, this story talks about a person being picked out from what they called the “Black Box” which is a very old wooden box that had people names written in it, so that day would be celebrated every year in this small village so when this day came they picked out a girl’s name called “Tessie”. She was arguing with Mr. Summers, the person

The lottery is something you should be thrilled about. In this day and age winning the lottery can revitalize your life. Today, if I won the lottery I could rethink my future and it would be a great outcome. Growing up I saw my family spend their last bottom dollar to get tickets for the lottery in hope they can be winners. Even while playing you end up losing in the long run. My mother told me the chances of winning the lottery are 1 in 14 million. I would think to myself, why play a game you can never win. I would get the response “It’s always fun to play and it’s tradition.” In the “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, I understand the cause and disagree with the policy on why being stoned to death is worth a tradition to celebrate.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story where a small town in New England has a lottery. The small town has their annual lottery around June which have been practiced for over seventy years. This lottery is not your regular lottery, this one consists of drawing slips. Slips are small white papers that holds every family’s name that lives in the village and only one of those slips have a black dot in the middle, whoever gets the slip with the black dot is stoned to death. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism all throughout the story to criticize tradition by the setting of the story, the characters' names, and the objects. The Setting of “The Lottery” is mentioned in the beginning of the story, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny,

Hutchinson this time is unfortunately the one to draw the unlucky piece. In the beginning of the story when Jackson says “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (Jackson), it is evident that in the end the stones will be used. As Hutchinson stood in the middle of empty space, she screams “it isn’t fair, it isn’t right” (Jackson). By this time, everyone was upon her, throwing stones until she suffered to death.

Shirley Jacksons, “The Lottery” is about keeping lottery traditions. The lottery starts on June 2nd, in the village there were only about 300 people, so the whole lottery only took about two hours so they could start at 10 a.m. and end at noon. They each will draw a card from a bowl, kind of like a fish bowl shape, and whoever draws the card wilive.th the black marking on it wins the lottery, but you can’t say anything until the lottery is over.

In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.

The Lottery tells the story of a small, insulated community that each year gathers on the same day to practice what is understood by the reader as a long standing tradition. Firstly, the head of each family selects a slip of paper. All of the slips of paper are blank with the exception of one slip which has a dark