The Lottery Narrative Report

There is an air of festivity among them, especially the children. Only a few in the crowd reveal slight hints of tension or unease. The lottery has a long history in this and surrounding towns. The people who run it—in this town, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves—work hard to preserve the rituals that have been passed down from year to year.

Only when we are introduced to Old Man Warner, the only man in the village old enough to remember some of the traditions, do we get an idea of the purpose of the lottery. It seems to be a pagan harvest ritual, as expressed by his old saying: ??Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon?? (Jackson 369). By participating in the lottery the villages crops will prove to be bountiful. He justifies the use of the lottery simply by stating ?There?s always been a lottery? (Jackson 369).

The people in the story have forgotten what the lottery is about.To further explain, the people in the village constantly reflect that “‘there’s always been a lLottery” but they don’t remember what it is about, meaning that they are not participating in the lLottery out of principle but out of basic tradition (Jackson, 4). In the same way, when talk of doing away with the lLottery is heard, the elders recite the saying “‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon’”(Jackson, 4). The

The village seems rather uncivilized and immoral in contrast to the modern, Western world. Their ritual stoning of an innocent person shocks the reader and immediately changes our perspective on the village. Jackson doesn’t clarify the purpose of the lottery, but Old Man Warner mentions that there “‘[u]sed to be a saying about “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”’” (Jackson 4). From this saying, we can deduce that the villagers once believed that a

The description of the rituals show that someone influences the people to chant and praise. This illustrates an otherworldly identification of the leader. Jackson further describes the victim of the lottery as someone who stood before the crowd resembling a divine being. Words such as “duly” and “supposed” provides knowledge that the village practiced and followed the same procedure every year with no other alternatives or any other unrequired arrangements. Similarly, Old Man Warner, when talking about the dangers of discontinuing the lottery, continues, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon’” (Jackson 4). Old Man Warner’s words imply the worship of a higher being, who willingly. sacrifice their own people to a divine individual with the hope that the rest of the year will be successful. This proves that the villagers don’t necessarily understand the real reason for the lottery; they subside because they believe in a higher being who will reward them with a good year. Although Jackson does tie “The Lottery” to a Biblical theme, there lies a greater reason for the twisted ending of her short story.

There are many Americans and people all over the world that live their lives following traditions that are passed down from one generation to another. A tradition can be as simple as cooking a recipe to how you raise your children and holiday traditions. Culture plays a significant role in how people live their day to day lives. In Shirley Jacksons “The Lottery” the people that lived in the town follow a tradition every year. It's easy to understand why Shirley Jackson’s Lottery caused controversy when it was published shortly after World War II in 1948. The Lottery has been dramatized, televised and turned into a ballet. It is taught in high schools and colleges. (Whittier). The Lottery held many questions about traditions that have

Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, clearly expresses her feelings concerning traditional rituals through her story. It opens the eyes of readers to properly classify and question some of today’s traditions as cruel, and allows room to foretell the outcome of these unusual traditions. “The Lottery” is a short story that records the annual sacrifice ceremony of a fictional small town. It is a detailed narrative of the selection of the person to be sacrificed, a process known to the townspeople as “the lottery”. This selection is extremely rich in symbolism. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to make readers aware of the pointless nature of humanity regarding tradition and violence. There are

Many families have traditions that they follow annually, things like setting up their Christmas tree a couple days after Thanksgiving or having Fourth of July parties. To this village, the lottery is a sacred tradition, something that the village had been built upon by the very first people to settle there. Every year the people in this town participate in a lottery that will bring one of their irfellow villagers to their death. The people continue to participate in the lottery because it is a sacred tradition.

Just like many old traditions, people are unclear about where or when they evolved, the town’s villagers have followed it for many years and they don’t want anything different. Old Man Warner says that giving up the tradition of the lottery could lead to a return to living in caves; “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while.”

It was a sunny summer day when all the villagers gathered in the village on June 27th for the annual Lottery. The actual event did not start until later on in the day, so there were little activities that the community members could do to keep them occupied. People would also go around looking for stones and collected them so they will have enough for the event. Mr. Summers is the person who conducted the Lottery. He has no kids so running the Lottery gave him something to do since he had a lot of time on his hands. Therefor he created the Lottery event and that was what he did to keep himself busy. The Lottery is the main reason of the villagers gathering together; at the event all the families from the village gather together to pick a slip of paper from a black box to determine who will get stoned by all the other villagers. In short story "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson demonstrates the dangers of a culture that requires people to participate in traditions that may lead to death.

“…Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery,”(551) Therefore, to accomplish that they had to use the lottery selection process as a means of getting more produce to the nearby villagers by using the lotto as a way to get a sacrificial pawn to participate in the yearly ceremony. Thus, to justify the meaning of the title I would say that it represents the sacrifice of one for the village or in this one for all and this is also a reason why I see the villagers as evil. Another reason would be when the villagers clearly claim that they don‘t want to stop the rituals because it just wouldn’t be right to change something that has been a part of this village for a long time. ("Some places have already quit lotteries." Mrs. Adams said. "Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said

For many years, the townspeople of a small, isolated town had performed a sort of lottery each year. However, the winner of this lottery was never a lucky one as they would be the subject of a stoning. The villagers who would all participate in this stoning had probably been doing this for so long that they had become blinded by what they were accomplishing- which was nothing at all. On a sunny June day Tessie Hutchinson had been chosen as the one person who the entire village would be getting to throw all types of stone at.

When the tradition first begun it was said that the lottery would help the town thrive as well as give them good luck. The tradition is also said to give the villages great crops. According to Old Man Warner “lottery in june, crops be heavy soon”(Jackson 540). It was very important for the villagers to uphold the tradition, because it would better the crops. This examples shows how tradition plays an important role on the mindset of people. The townspeople felt that having great crops was more important than the cruel behaviors behind the tradition.

While reading “The Lottery,” the book was well published and also includes a weird touch of view. The view of this may have been because of what were the people being nominated for. Mr. Summers was unordinary of how he is supposed to name off the people who are chosen. The black box will come into play really odd due to the history. The box had not been specified with much of a description at the beginning of the story until later.

“People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth”, said by Roberto Bolano. There are many different perceptions on the events that occur in “The Lottery”, “The Fun They Had”, and also “Eye of the Beholder.” I feel that in “The Lottery”, Tessie was right for arguing against winning the yearly tradition of the lottery. Margie was right for feeling that the past schools were better in “The Fun They Had”, and Janet was right for contrasting herself from the others in “Eye of the Beholder.” Individuals may distinguish their interpretations on distinct feelings or statements.