The Lottery Symbolism

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.

In Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery," what appears to be an ordinary day in a small town takes an evil turn when a woman is stoned to death after "winning" the town lottery. The lottery in this story reflects an old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order to encourage the growth of crops. But this story is not about the past, for through the actions of the town, Jackson shows us many of the social ills that exist in our own lives.

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.

Traditions are widespread among many different people and cultures; It is an explanation for acting without thinking. Not all traditions are a good thing, though, and blindly following them can lead to harsh consequences. The villagers in a small town in “The Lottery” gather together annually to participate in this tradition, where one person in the town is randomly chosen in a drawing to be violently stoned to death by citizens. It has been around for seventy-seven years and everyone partakes in it. People always attend, showing the importance of tradition amongst the society. However, in the short story, “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses many literary devices to show that traditions are not always meant to be followed.

tradition.” In the short story, “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson deals with the insignificant nature of humanity when it comes to traditions. Today when one thinks about winning, one does not think about the community or close relatives; one thinks about how one is going to spend the money received. However, in Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” represents a human sacrifice by means of stoning with the entire village participating. The lottery is a symbol that explains the rituals, and traditions which drive the community. Throughout the story, tradition plays an important role in the villagers’ lives. Tradition can cause needless

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.

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 slips of paper also represent something in “The Lottery”. “The pieces of paper represent the fragility and feebleness of life,” implies Lucas Sheelat. Paper is proven to be fragile; easy to rip even. Just like the lives in the village their lives hang in the balance of a single slip of paper that can easily tear their very life away.

Symbolism can be found in many of the objects, places, or experiences around us. Believe it or not, symbolism may be found within a person. Symbolism represents an object that has more than one meaning within it. As an example, the color red may represent something hazardous or even love as well. Symbols can also be used in the battlefield to get through a mission, crack enemy codes, and even save a life as well.

Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” shows the reader that the human race will do any horrible act for success, in this case holding a town lottery where the winner is stoned to death in the towns square in hopes of a bountiful corn crop come during harvest time. The lottery is a tradition held in the town annually on June 27 and is done right as the corn is ready to become fruitful. Even in the day and age where technology is used for farming (tractors, plows) to till and harvest the land, this is a communal tradition that cannot be broken.

Shirley Jackson wrote the story “The Lottery” back in 1948 to show us how ridiculous it could be to blindly follow certain traditions. In this story the author uses symbolisms to warn and prepare the reader about the gruesome ending of the lottery. There are a lot of symbols in the story and the main are the items, the lottery and the character names.

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,

Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, is a terrifying, tension filled masterpiece of an ancient human practice set present day America, 1948. Jackson’s dark, short story is about a rural farming village on the east coast, who, like other villages around them, conduct a yearly “lottery.” It begins in the town square in the month of June, where the schoolchildren are gathering stones while awaiting the arrival of their respective families. When the lottery is formally started, roll call is initiated followed by that particular person walking up to the “black box” and removing a slip of paper without looking at it. Once the names of all the villagers are called, everyone looks at their own slips of paper, even the woman and children. The villager with the black circle is the winner of that year’s lottery and as such, is chosen to die by stoning from the other villagers. It is important to note that The Lottery is written just after World War II, in the years following the holocaust. Jackson moves to reconstruct how Germans, at the time, were able to turn a blind eye and accept a barbaric act of purging their neighbors as a societal norm. The reaction to this short story made Shirley Jackson famous; she set off emotional waves coast to coast of hatred and denial in regards to the meaning of the text. Through a Marxism analysis, it is easier to understand how a society as a whole accepts an institutionalized ritual as a part of everyday life.

One of the most horrific stories in modern American literature, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, seems to attract great attention from readers of that era. The story begins with a picture of a small village that holds a ritualistic lottery each year in the summer. Tessie Hutchinson is the person who was picked by the “lottery”, then stoned to death. As a sacrifice for the sake of a good harvest, the villagers stone her to death despite her protests about the unfairness of the drawing. Through characters, symbolism, and setting of the story, “The Lottery” exposes a strong statement regarding human sacrificing in America in the 1900s.

The Lottery tells the story of a small, insulated community that each year gathers on the same day to practice what is understood by the reader as a long standing tradition. Firstly, the head of each family selects a slip of paper. All of the slips of paper are blank with the exception of one slip which has a dark