The Lottery Short Story Analysis

Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is a short story about the annual gathering of the villagers to conduct an ancient ritual. The ritual ends in the stoning of one of the residents of this small village. This murder functions under the guise of a sacrament that, at one time, served the purpose of ensuring a bountiful harvest. This original meaning, however, is lost over the years and generations of villagers. The loss of meaning has changed the nature and overall purpose of the lottery. This ritual is no longer a humble sacrifice that serves the purpose of securing the harvest but instead is a ceremony of violence and murder only existing for the pleasure found in this violence.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story littered with warnings and subtext about the dangers a submissive society can pose. While the opening is deceptively cheery and light Jackson uses an array of symbols and ominous syntax to help create the apprehensive and grim tone the story ends with. Her portrayal of the town folk as blindly following tradition represents the world during World War II when people’s failure to not mindlessly accept and heed authority lead to disastrous consequences. . Shirley Jackson uses a large array of techniques to help convey the idea that recklessly following and accepting traditions and orders can lead to disastrous consequences.

Shirley Jackson is known for her creative writing and plot twisting stories such as “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Lottery”. Jackson always finds a way to leave the reader somewhat confused and wanting to read more. In both of these stories it is a small town where everyone knows one another but something about each of these towns isn't right. In “The Lottery” it turns out that each year, one family, then individual from that family is chosen to be stoned to death for a sacrifice. Then in “The Possibility of Evil” it turns out that one old woman has been writing rude anonymous letters to the people of the town. In both essays Jackson uses many literary devices that help her create these stories that she is so known for. Some of the literary devices she uses are situational and verbal irony, and mood and foreshadowing. She uses a fair amount of all three of these throughout her short stories.

«The lottery» is an allegory which was written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. In it, she used an irony to show how inane could be some traditions and people who essentially follow them. The lottery - is the ritual when all people from the small village crowd together and Mr. Summers, who enjoys devoting civic activities, organizes this event. He and his assistant make a small piece of paper and one of these has a black dot. They put it into the shabby black box, after Mr. Summers call head of household to determine who will «win» the lottery. But the winner should not be happy, because all other citizens will stone the winner to death. People do it annually, because they afraid that the harvest could be poor. Everyone must participate, regardless of gender and age. This short story contains a lot of different characters to explain how belief in something abnormal of previous generations can strongly affect traditions and consider morality.

In this essay I will be doing a compare and contrast between the two stories “The Lottery” by Chris Alani and “the Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Both stories were good, and had a deep meaning behind both stories that leaves the readers wondering why the stories had to end in the way they did. Now I’ll start off by giving a summary of both stories so you can know and understand my point of view better.

As the plot of the stories unfolds, the greater influence of violent tensions become evident. In The Lottery, people follow the tradition despite its cruelty and absurdity. Although the ritual of the lottery is brutal, the dwellers of the village do not seem to see how barbaric it is because “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson, 1982, p. 118). Nevertheless, the tensions grow when the lottery begin and every citizen is awaiting for its end. The climatic moment of the story grows when the reader discovers that Tess

“The Lottery” describes the proceedings of a lottery in an American village, in which the winner of the lottery will be stoned to death. Most readers are shocked when they get to the ending, mainly because they would never expect something so horrific to be described with such normality. Perhaps the narrator of the “Lottery” themselves grew up with and is used to such a tradition. Perhaps to them, they are just describing a regular part of life. It can be said, then, that “The Lottery” depicts how a person’s surroundings play the role of guide, shaping their morals and ethics.

The first topic in this essay, foreshadowing, Is the most frequently used literary device in “ The Lottery.” In the beginning of the story, when the kids gathered stones is an example of foreshadowing. We didn’t know why they were gathering stones, until the end of the story when they stoned Tessie. Another example of foreshadowing is the nervousness in the crowd. The crowd gave hints that winning this lottery wasn’t a good thing-as we found

In the short story “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the lottery is an yearly event, that happens on June 27th. The lottery process starts at ten o'clock in them morning. The ending time is not set, because that depends on the population of the town. All the people are gathered, and are organized by their family. Each family sends a person from their family to take a slip of paper out of the black box; this is usually the male head of the family, but a women can draw in the absence of him. Those papers cannot be opened until every family gets a paper. After family gets their paper, everyone opens their up. If your paper has a black dot on it, then that means you are the “lucky” family. The paper with the black dot is then placed back into the box, along with a white piece of paper for each person in the “lucky” family. Each family member then redraws the slip of paper. Then, each person in the family opens their paper up, and whoever got the piece of paper with the black dot on it, you will be stoned to death.

Have you ever thought about having a lottery that results in you not winning money, but to get stoned to death? The short story I choose for this assignment is the “Lottery”, I choose this short story because when I first read the story I had lots to say about it and I also believe the tradition that is being followed in this story is very different, interesting, sad and unfair. The lottery by far is one of the most unique stories I have read. This short story has five different themes and lots of literary devices used to get the story in touch with the reader.

The unexceptional setting in which the events of "The Lottery" transpire fools readers into believing that it is just a regular story, however it is in fact a place where they stone someone to death each year in order to reap a greater harvest. This comes as an unexpected twist to the readers because of the nature of the village described seems similar to country villages all around the world, this makes the reader feel as though the events that take place could in fact happen within our world. Readers are therefore encouraged to reflect on their own actions due to the realism and regularity of the setting within "The

Who doesn’t want to win the lottery? I certainly want to win. However in this town winning the lottery means certain death. On June 27, the townspeople performed the annual lottery in a small village called Stoneridge.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story which describes the proceedings of an annual lottery which takes place in a small town. The lottery has been going on for many generations and although there have been talks about abolishing it, it seems as though the community would do anything in order to make sure that they keep up with their traditions. In this short story, Jackson’s overall writing style and the usage of symbolism, irony and theme helps make the reader understand the true essence of the story. The story begins in a nice warm day in June as the villagers are coming together to participate in a lottery.

    Often, we paint a fairytale view of life for ourselves and our children. Sometimes, an author paints a frightfully realistic picture of life and forces us to reconsider the fairytale. In Shirley Jackson’s story, "The Lottery," a town each year conducts a lottery in which the winner or looser, in this case, is stoned to death by his or her own neighbors. The tradition is supposed to uphold social structure within the town, but in order to comprehend the true meaning of the story you must be able to read between the lines. "The Lottery" is a story about a town that has let its traditions go too far. Also, it is clear that the story contains eye-opening facts that lead me to

The morning of April 1st was sunny and bright; the ground was moist and flowers of vibrant colors were blooming. The olive green trees were swaying in a gentle breeze and the river by the village was teeming with fish. A rainbow glowed against the blue sky, catching every villagers’ attention. The villagers of Shiveria had begun to assemble at the center of the village where the annual lottery was being held. Because of the town’s small population of 400 people, the lottery would probably take less than 3 hours.