The Lottery By Martin Niemoller

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson artfully uses foreshadowing in order to build suspense and create a shocking ending. Jackson’s success in “The Lottery” comes from her ability to keep the reader in the dark about the evils, until the very end. She has masterfully set up what the reader believes as a pleasant event. But, it is not until the ending, can the reader see the foreshadowing of the evils to come. Through the use of foreshadowing, Jackson is able to contribute to the story 's overall effect of suspense and a shocking ending.

Henceforth, the lottery by Shirley Jackson is the same as the poem First They Came, by Martin Niemoller because they both deal with justice and indifference. The evidence is that in the short story The lottery deals with justice and indifference because when Mrs. Hutcheson got killed she said this isn’t fair it isn’t right. In the poem First they came he stood up for what he thinks is right and Martin got put in concentration camps for standing up for what is right. In the lottery Tessie had no one to stand up for her, she

Andrew Lansley once said “Peer pressure and social norms are powerful influences on behavior, and they are classic excuses.” Most people tend to follow cultural customs because they have grown with them or it has been forced onto them with factors such as parents or their environment. However, is it always right to follow these customs even if they are in fact considered wrong? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a short story about the cultural norms of a small community and its annual lottery ritual; a stoning. Jackson overthrows the story by making the lottery a corrupt occurrence rather than a victory. The reader would probably think that the “winner” of the lottery would be benefited but in this case the victory was not so delightful. In her short story “The Lottery” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

In some ways, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson could be seen as controversial. Within the first paragraph, we are left with two main questions; “what is the lottery?” and “why does it happen?” A major theme that answers the first question is all about tradition. Yes, the lottery is a tradition in many towns. No one has ever questioned this tradition, even though it is quite inhumane. In all honesty, you could compare this story very well to The Hunger Games just because of what this tradition consists of. Imagine being in a town of around three hundred people and having your life put on the line. The lottery itself comes down to all of the townspeople meeting up, and each family name is read by Mr. Summers, and the head of the family

«The lottery» is an allegory which was written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. In it, she used an irony to show how inane could be some traditions and people who essentially follow them. The lottery - is the ritual when all people from the small village crowd together and Mr. Summers, who enjoys devoting civic activities, organizes this event. He and his assistant make a small piece of paper and one of these has a black dot. They put it into the shabby black box, after Mr. Summers call head of household to determine who will «win» the lottery. But the winner should not be happy, because all other citizens will stone the winner to death. People do it annually, because they afraid that the harvest could be poor. Everyone must participate, regardless of gender and age. This short story contains a lot of different characters to explain how belief in something abnormal of previous generations can strongly affect traditions and consider morality.

In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson writes about the game lottery, which makes the story very ironic. Unlike all of the other Lottery games, in this traditional version no one wants to be chosen, because that brings them the end of their life. Jackson explains how keeping up with some traditions that are part of people’s life, may not be the best choice to embrace a particular culture. Jackson uses the Lottery as an example to express her idea about the ethical issues such as; violent murder, harming people, forcefully following a tradition, and lying. All of these ethical issues are created by blindly following tradition in “The Lottery.”

The author of “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson decided it was important to write this short story in order to inform the readers about another dimension, where a certain common tradition gets prized with something obscure. Some readers can be shocked when reading this story, because they might be surprised and even shocked with the themes that play along in the storyline. This short story “The Lottery” was so controversial at the time, because in the date it was published in June 24, 1948 there were so many themes from the stories that could relate to past events or even event that were taking place at the time.

In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” a small village is preparing for an annual drawing, a tradition carried out for generations. During this ritual, the head of each household draws a blank piece of paper out of a black box. One piece of paper is marked with a single black dot and if chosen, the outcome is having the winner’s entire household draw out of the box. Whoever chooses the black dot out of the household is stoned to death by the entire village. In this instance, a husband wins to which his wife protests, and then she is the ultimate victim who is sacrificed. This story includes many literary elements like foreshadowing, warning of a future event, symbolism, symbols used in the story to represent ideas,and irony, when the contrary to what is expected to happen, occurs. Jackson uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony to prove the theme that it is foolish and barbaric to blindly follow tradition.

“The Lottery” was written in 1948 by Shirley Jackson. Mrs. Jackson, born in 1916, was known for her tales of horror and supernatural novels. She and her literary critic husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman lived in a little town called Bennington, Vermont. Mrs. Jackson was not accepted by the town. Her novels, especially “The Lottery”, revealed the dark side of human nature. Stephen King honored Shirley Jackson by dedicating his book Firestarter to her.

The movie “Do the Right Thing” starts with the loudness of “Fight the Power”. When we are still immersed in the rhythm and lyrics of the song, and before we even realize, Spike Lee has already taken us into a tiny block in an ordinary Brooklyn neighborhood, into a horrifying miniature of the noisy American race conversation, into a battle between love and hate. This block might be tiny, but it is not simple because of the people who live here. There is Mr. Senor Love Daddy, the local DJ and troubadour; there is the block’s old couple, Da Mayor and Mother Sister, who can never stop arguing with each other; there is Smiley, the mentally disabled guy who sells pictures of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who always gets shoved around by everybody;

Spike Lee’s movie “Do the Right Thing” portrays a time in American history when the post-civil rights movement was still fresh in everyone’s mind. It is 1989, and Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X have placed their stamp on the country. While MLK preached for peace, Malcom X wanted the people to fight back in self-defense. This movie portrays these two views side by side through several different scenes.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”- Muhammad Ali. The authors Rick Reilly, Langston Hughes, and Robert frost all have something in common. They wrote about characters finding the courage to do the right thing. These commentaries, short stories, and poems are all trying to send a message. Try to do the right thing when called upon. After reading the texts Doing the Right Thing, Thank You Ma’am, and The Road Not Taken, it is evident that all the main characters found their courage from someone they looked up to/ a role model, something they didn’t want to lose, or something bad that they didn’t want to happen.

Once upon a time there was a little village. In this village three hundred people happily farmed and played and went about their business. The children went to school while the men cut wood or farmed, and the women cooked and cleaned. Every summer in June each of villagers took part in the traditional lottery drawing and one villager was picked for the prize – a stoning. In 1948, Shirley Jackson published this short story known as “The Lottery,” in The New York Times. The story’s plot shocked readers all over America as they learned of the horror happening in such a quaint town. Jackson purposely set this tragic event in this innocent setting to emphasize humanity’s cruelty. Using her appalling short story, The Lottery,

Two stories from different genres and different points of view, somehow deals the same theme. Standing up for what is right may not always be the easiest path, there is was some consequence that people have to pay for trying to make things right. Everyday there is something going on that people want to change, but they cannot always stand up. In the story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, villagers gather in the town square, to the annual lottery, where only one person is lucky. However, “winning” is actually losing in this story, the “winner” gets stoned to death by their peers. Mrs. Hutchinson was the “lucky winner”, however, she was trying to tell everyone in the village that it was unfair. “First They Came,” by Martin Niemoller is a true

Almost everyone has made a sacrifice in their lifetime that benefits others around them. These sacrifices can be hard to make, since the individual does not receive any satisfaction, but it may be necessary to forgo something to benefit other members of society. These sacrifices can be forced upon an individual by the majority, or can be voluntarily made. If making sacrifices for the greater good is the way a certain group has always done it, then it is accepted from the viewpoint of enculturation, or the adaptation of a society’s members to the norms shared by a culture. Individuals will continue to make these sacrifices so they don’t interfere with concept of normality within their society. This is evident in a few of the works of literature that the class has gone over: The Lottery, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Battle Royal, Equus, Harrison Bergeron, and Huckleberry Finn are all pieces of literature that include various types of sacrifice being made to benefit the greater good.