The Lottery Narrative Report

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).

Despite the fact that they have yearly stonings, the townspeople are relatively nice. They have many community gatherings that are happy, unlike the lottery. Mr. Summers conducts the lottery along with “the square dances, the teenage club, and Halloween program.” It is very obvious that Mr. Summers, is not a bad man, so he cannot, and should not be blamed for the lottery. The lottery makes all the townspeople look cruel and dehumanizing, but they are not, it is just the lottery that is awful. This goes to show that the people do horrible things even if they are not horrible people. Secondly, all the town does the lottery so that they can have good crops that season. “Lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon.” Good crops lead to good sales

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

Summers tries to make the ceremony go as quickly as possible so that the anxiety levels from not knowing who is going to get selected do not get too high. There have been multiple changes made to the ceremony in order to make it shorter, such as the fact that there is no more recital done by the official of the lottery, nor is there any more ritual salute for everyone who came up to draw their lot. Instead, Mr. Summers now just merely speaks to everyone who comes up to draw. Mr. Summers also makes multiple mentions of wanting to hurry up with the ceremony, like when Mrs. Hutchinson finally arrives he says “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work” (Jackson 256). He wants the ceremony to be done with so that everybody can get back to their normal lives and forget about the horrible atrocity that is about to unfold. One more example of Mr. Summers wanting to hurry up with the ceremony is after Mrs. Hutchinson draws the marked slip of paper, he says “Let’s finish quickly” (Jackson 259). Mr. Summers says this because he does not want what is about to happen to last for too long so that Mrs. Hutchinson will not suffer and so that the rest of the townsfolk do not have to perform the violent act that they are about to do for very

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.

Men gather next, followed by the women. The lottery is conducted by Mr. Summers, because he had the time and the energy for the activities of the village. He arrives in the square with the shabby black wooden box. The original black box used for the lottery was lost many years ago; “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much as tradition as was represented by the black box.” (Jackson 140)

It is apparent that this is almost a mechanical event. Mr. Summers gives instructions on how to proceed, but the people have done this so many times they hardly pay attention (Jackson, 250). How they go about the lottery does not seem nearly as important as making sure everyone has a chance at the prize (Jackson, 251). Truly, a western culture ideal. Jackson may be trying to highlight the fact that society has become so preoccupied with getting our share of the pie that we do not stop and consider the consequences to ourselves, or to others.

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.

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.