The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson

“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.

Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” written in 1948 came literally as a bomb for a wide readership by bringing a revelatory realization on the real society. The author reflects upon people, their behavior and attitudes to such life realities such as traditions and rituals. She was able to show the background of the routine rural life led by ordinary people to show the darkest side of human nature when people are blindly following traditions. Jackson contrasted beliefs and traditions against the common sense and soundness of the society by the plot of the story to the point of absurdity. When being attacked by the readers’ numerous queries she shared her conceptions saying: “Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult.

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

What is the difference between superstitions and traditions? «The lottery» by Shirley Jackson provides a good example how superstitions of people from a tiny town affect on those traditions. This story shows dark side of Humanity. Whole community entrusts their life with a small black box. The allegory can confuse you, because the main purpose of the «lottery» is kill one of the citizens for a strange false belief. To my mind, the author tried to explain why new generation sometimes shouldn’t continue the weird and cruel traditions.

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.

"It isn't fair, it isn't right, Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her" (Jackson). Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is brimming with illustrations of how thoughtless repetition dilutes foundations that were once rock solid. The traditions of the village in the story lead to the stoning to death of one of the residents on a yearly basis. The people were not so clear as to how, when, or why this took place every year; however, this did not stop them from continuing with an encore. The limited view they had on life and of growth was the road block that prevented any major change. Traditions can overcome society's better judgement.

Like it’s time, this story’s realistic yet vague location provides insight into Jackson’s evaluation of society’s inhumanity. The setting continues to expose the idea that we do not know where this horrible event occurs; it could be in the next country or even the next town. But Jackson purposefully shows that this barbaric cruelty could be anywhere, and critic Jay A. Yarmove agrees: “At no point does the author tell us where the lottery takes place, but we are made aware of several possible indicators” (41). Jackson hints at a quaint town as she describes the village “where there were only three hundred people” who came together and “greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip” (1). These details create the possibility that this town exists and the lottery really occurs somewhere. As Cleanth Brooks states it, “the village is made to exist for us” (76). Shirley Jackson makes a concerted effort through these details to make the village

“The Lottery” is a fictional short story written by Shirley Jackson is a that signifies the obeying rules and tradition, as well as being rebellious. This all suggests that their not so lucky “lottery” is a conventional ceremony. The story centers on a small town on the town’s day of their once-a-year Lottery. The significance of the town Lottery is to ensure their belief to sacrifice in order to be given a plethora of rain to obtain a good farming season the coming year. The story focuses around the erroneous belief that if the villagers sacrifice a human to their Weather God, then the villagers will receive good weather to grow crops. The villagers believe that if they do not sacrifice, then they will be given insufficient farming conditions. “The Lottery” displays many literary elements throughout the pages, however, the ones that are most evident are the story’s setting, symbolism, and irony; the author constructs a paradoxical story through these elements.

Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery,” is a story about the need to find a sin offering to appease the community’s superstition while everyone else plays the scapegoat.

In the lottery by, “Shirley Jackson” she creates a shocking and horrifying situation for the villagers. She uses characterization, setting, and individual versus society. The event that takes place during the story don’t happen in any other town, and as you read on its cruel and unusual to see what these people go through.

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” by Shirley Jackson, is a short story about an annual lottery draw in a small New England town. The town’s people have performed the lottery for more than seventy years. Shirley Jackson gives “The Lottery” a whole different meaning . The lottery is used for a public stoning, opposing to the very first thing that approaches to a reader 's mind when they think of the lottery; a big amount of money . The reader sees both literal and metaphorical meaning of the Shirley Jackson’s short story because for one it shows for face value what the entire story is about, and hidden behind it is the notion of the target being picked like a lottery number. Shirley Jackson narrates the story in a twisted manner. She writes the story in such a way that the reader feels involved and active in the beginning but the climax is when the readers get shocked by the twists and turn in the plot . The storyline is vivid and captivating.

What if you read something that made you question your entire life? How would you react? A suspenseful gothic thriller told in fewer than 4,000 words, filled with excitement and eeriness, leaving the reader speechless. The Lottery , a short story written by famous writer Shirley Jackson, created an uproar on June 26, 1948, when it was published in the magazine The New Yorker (Ball). The gothic thriller, set in an unknown time and place, shares the tradition of a small town, a little larger than three hundred people, in which a drawing is held once a year. In this “Lottery,” each family’s husband draws a slip of paper from a black box. The husband who selects the slip with a black spot on it, immediately becomes at risk of dying. He and his family then have a second drawing; the “winner” of this second drawing is to be murdered by the townspeople (“The Lottery Full”). Jackson composed this classic short story very easily. When asked about the writing process, she replied, “I had the idea fairly clearly in my mind when I put my daughter in her playpen and the frozen vegetables in the refrigerator and, writing the story, I found that it went quickly and easily, moving from beginning to end without pause” (“Shirley Jackson The”). The Lottery is a portrayal of the evil that existed in the world during the period that Shirley Jackson wrote this short story.