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.

Throughout the work of Langston Hughes, and the documentary film, “The Lottery”, you find many similarities, and differences from today’s society and acceptance of black Americans. In today’s society these works and many others of the Harlem Renaissance era still hold true, but the most important is the African Americans reliance on God.

On the surface, Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” reads as a work of horror. There is a village that holds an annual lottery where the winner is stoned to death so the village and its people could prosper. Some underlying themes include: the idea that faith and tradition are often followed blindly, and those who veer away from tradition are met with punishment, as well as the idea of a herd mentality and bystander apathy. What the author manages to do successfully is that she actually uses the names of historical figures to add to the underlying themes of the story. Some names include the Puritan spiritual advisor Anne Hutchinson, who is banished for speaking out against Christian beliefs and traditions, the founder of

    "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

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.

“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.

In the beginning of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” June 27th is as normal as any other summer day in the small village. The morning was described as “clear and sunny” with “flowers blossoming profusely and the grass richly green” (Jackson, 1). The attitudes of the children are rather happy and normal as they begin to gather playing “boisterous[ly]” (Jackson, 1). By the end of the story, the beautiful, normal summer day as described in the beginning is a day that every member, including the children, of the town partakes in a public stoning of a member of their village. In this dark and unpredictable short story, Shirley Jackson uses tone and objects to convey a message of tradition and murder.

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,

Typically, when one hears the word lottery, they think about someone winning a desirable prize. Unfortunately, this is not the case in a small American town that Shirley Jackson introduces us to in her novel, "The Lottery". In this novel, readers get to know a patriarch community that takes part in an unusual annual tradition. In this tradition, the town gathers to play a game. The head of each family in the town draws a slip from a black box. One of the slips in the black box contains a black dot. This game is the town 's form of a lottery; who ever draws the dotted slip will be stoned to death by the other town members. The story starts off serene and idyllic but by the end readers witness a murder. Shirley Jackson’s, "The Lottery”, shows how people often hold on to traditions even when they are barbaric and have lost their meaning. She does this by showing readers that members of the society will hold on to inhumane practices simply because the practice is considered tradition. In this exploration of this towns traditional "lottery", Jackson leads the reader down a savage story line. Jackson is able to draw on the ethnic appeal by focusing on the very moment of the stoning. After the stoning, the reader is able to look back and see several details they might have missed or overlooked. The tradition has taken control of the community members.

Stonings have been around for centuries, it is something I heard about as a child in Sunday school, something I thought was done in the past and not today. Stonings are alive to this day mostly in the middle east. more often than not women are stoned more than men. Convictions in Iran are based on witness testimony, judge conviction or confession; friends, family, neighbors and any other volunteers may participate in the stoning of a victim. Stoning is a horrific way to die, sometimes taking up to two hours to kill the victim. In the story “The Lottery” author Shirley Jackson has the towns people of the story stone one of their own as a sacrifice while in the middle east people are stoned as a punishment for “crime” this act of capital punishment is barbaric and should be banned.

It is the human nature to make sacrifices for the people in their community, those they love, and those who they perceive less fortunate. As such, people partake in traditions which have been passed down by their own ancestors, regardless of the place of such traditions in the contemporary society. They simply do them based upon the tradition and respect. In the short story, “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson depicts a small town whose people unquestionably cling on a tradition of human sacrifice despite of being of less significance at the time. Every year, the town sanctions the sacrifice of one individual to keep the town in God’s good graces, by stating “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” (Jackson, 370). The town citizens also believe that the annual human sacrifice significantly contributes to huge harvests in the community. By conducting the sacrifice as a stoning, the town members feel connected to the ancient past, which helps to enfold the entire process in mystery and a sense of ancient evil in the society. Despite traditional rituals such as human sacrifice having traditional backgrounds, most of them are cruel and unworthy of human observance.