What Is The Message Sent In The Lottery '?

Although two different stories, with multiple differences in conflict and setting, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell bear multiple similarities as well. Both stories demonstrate how humans are portrayed as evil vs. good. Each story depicts a protagonist exhibiting conflict with another human or humans. One ends on a dark gloomy path for the protagonist while the other results in a victory for the protagonist.

Lotteries weren’t always about millions of dollars. A popular author of short stories, Shirley Jackson brought light to this in her story “The Lottery”. As a reader I learn, the lottery is a ritual where a citizen of the town is chosen at random and abuse. This not only shows how society negatively influences people blindly, but at random as well. Jackson wrote this story to inform people of the way we live, and how society can change very fast without warning. By illustrating how the town turned on Tessie after she drew the wrong slip of paper, she gave a Segway to the way people think and how things are not

A literary device element that was used in “The Lottery” was setting. Setting from the story relates to the theme of false hopes. As it developed throughout the article, it shows that it took place during the summer time in June in a small village of 300 people. The description of the day states that it “ Was clear and sunny, fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green”(Jackson 1). The quote relates to the theme of false hopes because when you read this you think it is going to be a nice day and good things are going to happen. In reality this is a day that most do not look forward to, and a day that carries the tradition of death.

The idea of winning a lottery is associated with luck, happiness and anticipation of good things. In Shirley Jackson's story, " The Lottery", this is not the case. The irony of the story is that the winner of the lottery gets stoned to death by everyone else in the town. The story is very effective because it examines certain aspects of human nature.

The lottery is usually associated with beating the odds and winning something extravagant. In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”, the reader is led to believe the story is about something cheerful and happy given the setting of a warm summer day and children out of school for the summer. Jackson turns winning the lottery into a bad thing. Of 300 villagers Tessie Hutchinson shows up late, claiming she forgot about the annual lottery drawing, but seems very excited to have made it on time. When Tessie was in no danger she is gossiping with neighbors and encourages her husband to draw for the winner. Jackson curiously builds up the character of Tessie so that it seems she is blinded by tradition until she becomes a victim of it

    "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

Society today sees the lottery as an easy way to win a ginormous amount of cash just by buying a little slip of paper with a combination of numbers. The irony that Shirley Jackson uses in her short story, The Lottery, is used to the extreme by not only the title being ironic, but also within the story. The lottery is seen as a way to gain cash, but the ironic part of the title is that the reader sees it and thinks that the story will be about someone winning a big prize, yet the winner is sentenced to being stoned to death. Within the story, Shirley Jackson writes about how one member of the community ultimately chooses who wins the lottery. Another ironic thing about someone chooses the winner is that one of the communities sons picked his own father to win the lottery. Linda Wagner-Martin analyzes The Lottery and its irony by writing, “Bringing in the small children as she does, from early in the story (they are gathering stones, piling them up where they will be handy, and participating in the ritual as if it were a kind of play), creates a poignance not only for the death of Tessie the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to the youngest Hutchinson, little Dave. Having the child draw his own slip of paper from the box reinforces the normality of the occasion, and thereby adds to Jackson's irony. It is family members, women and children, and fellow residents who are being killed through this orderly, ritualized process. As Jackson herself once wrote, "I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's

To a first time reader, Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” seems simply as a curious tale with a shocking ending. After repetitive reading of Jackson's tale, it is clear that each sentence is written with a unique purpose often using symbolism. Her use of symbols not only foreshadow its surprise and disturbing ending but allows the reader to evaluate the community's pervert traditional rituals. She may be commenting on the season of the year and the grass being “richly green” or the toying with the meanings of the character's names but each statement applies to the meaning and lesson behind her story.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a story filled with sunny weather and boisterous play and a town filled with a what seems like a burden--a lottery to see who will be the one to leave their town and the Earth forever. For many people, this story is dark, compelling, and mind boggling, yet it also feels that it gives a warning to humanity and to the entire face of the Earth. I believe that Shirley Jackson is warning us about what humanity is capable of doing, and how people conform blindly to society’s expectations. Throughout the story, many signs of this is shown from the year the story was written to the very last sentence.

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.

I do believe that an unsetteling ritual like the one told in The Lottery could happen in America today. This story insinuated that the ritual was done for two possible reasons. The first reason being to lessen the crime rate in their village, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example....eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys". The second reason being to lessen their population, " Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued. had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box". Both of these experiences are problems America has been trying to fix as of recently.

The story “The Lottery” is about a small paganistic town with at least one tradition that definitely would stick out in today's society. In 1948 Shirley Jackson wrote the story “The Lottery”. If you take account for what time period this story was written in you will notice how society has greatly changed from the 1940s to today. Granted, people today are still set in their ways, but now people are more willing to drift away from their family traditions. “The Lottery” is still relevant in today’s society.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story that shows the most shocking elements of humanity. The ending surprises the reader by coming out of nowhere, and shows the brutality that people are capable of. New Yorker Readers were shocked to the point of outrage at the time of its publishing. They were both certain that it was “perverted” and “gratuitously disagreeable,” but also that they didn’t “know what it’s about” (Franklin). Jackson herself hoped the story would “shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). This shock is very effective, and is in part possible because of how Jackson portrays her characters. She sets the story up to shock the reader by leaving only slight hints, but also by effectively showing how the characters themselves see the event. Jackson highlights the commonplace nature of the event. She portrays the event as a dated ritual, and explains the ways that the people of the town resist it. T ending feels like a surprise because it is brutal and because the characters themselves resist understanding the ritual. Jackson makes the true meaning of the event invisible to everyone except the readers and the victims themselves.

Personal Response The Lottery “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson presents the theme of tradition to show how harmful it can be if followed without any rationale. My first true impression of what the story was about came from the title, “The Lottery”. It gave me the impression that a genuine lottery was taking place, in that one would ultimately win a sought after reward. This was where my expectations laid and the story appeared to lead this way.

In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.