The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

It was the villagers’ belief that if no sacrifice is made, they would “be eating stewed chickweed and acorns” (page.4). What strikes most about the ritual of stoning the lottery winner to death is that the villagers would take the brutal rite as an obstacle for doing routine work and other things. Could anyone call them being insane if the whole meaning of the tradition was lost in the course of that legacy will being handed down from generation to generation? On the one hand, the lottery procedure and rules of participation are described very detailed manner because the author want to imply that the event was really very important for the village and its inhabitants. But on the other hand, at reading the following: “The original paraphernalia for the lottery has been lost long ago” (page.4) and “The people had done it so many times that they only half-listened to the directions” (page. 3) reader can feel the irrelevance of the event for the villagers versus how deep the traditions had been rooted in the minds and hearts of the people.

In the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the change in tone shifts over time starting with a gleeful and sunny beginning turning to a ghastly and horrifying story towards the resolution. The author shifts her tone in order to make a more dramatic ending that will stick with the reader, the ending transforms the short story from realism to symbolism so that the readers can further use this story in a real world context.

Andrew Lansley once said “Peer pressure and social norms are powerful influences on behavior, and they are classic excuses.” Most people tend to follow cultural customs because they have grown with them or it has been forced onto them with factors such as parents or their environment. However, is it always right to follow these customs even if they are in fact considered wrong? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a short story about the cultural norms of a small community and its annual lottery ritual; a stoning. Jackson overthrows the story by making the lottery a corrupt occurrence rather than a victory. The reader would probably think that the “winner” of the lottery would be benefited but in this case the victory was not so delightful. In her short story “The Lottery” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

In some ways, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson could be seen as controversial. Within the first paragraph, we are left with two main questions; “what is the lottery?” and “why does it happen?” A major theme that answers the first question is all about tradition. Yes, the lottery is a tradition in many towns. No one has ever questioned this tradition, even though it is quite inhumane. In all honesty, you could compare this story very well to The Hunger Games just because of what this tradition consists of. Imagine being in a town of around three hundred people and having your life put on the line. The lottery itself comes down to all of the townspeople meeting up, and each family name is read by Mr. Summers, and the head of the family

What is the difference between superstitions and traditions? «The lottery» by Shirley Jackson provides a good example how superstitions of people from a tiny town affect on those traditions. This story shows dark side of Humanity. Whole community entrusts their life with a small black box. The allegory can confuse you, because the main purpose of the «lottery» is kill one of the citizens for a strange false belief. To my mind, the author tried to explain why new generation sometimes shouldn’t continue the weird and cruel traditions.

In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson writes about the game lottery, which makes the story very ironic. Unlike all of the other Lottery games, in this traditional version no one wants to be chosen, because that brings them the end of their life. Jackson explains how keeping up with some traditions that are part of people’s life, may not be the best choice to embrace a particular culture. Jackson uses the Lottery as an example to express her idea about the ethical issues such as; violent murder, harming people, forcefully following a tradition, and lying. All of these ethical issues are created by blindly following tradition in “The Lottery.”

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.

“The Lottery” was written in 1948 by Shirley Jackson. Mrs. Jackson, born in 1916, was known for her tales of horror and supernatural novels. She and her literary critic husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman lived in a little town called Bennington, Vermont. Mrs. Jackson was not accepted by the town. Her novels, especially “The Lottery”, revealed the dark side of human nature. Stephen King honored Shirley Jackson by dedicating his book Firestarter to her.

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.

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 wrote a short story called "The Lottery". It was about small village and its village people of roughly around 300 people and every year they have a tradition where all the townspeople gather around a black box and have to pull a piece of paper out to see what family was to draw again. Then once the family was picked they had to put as many pieces of paper in the box as they have in their family and do it all over again. Once every family member picked out of the box, they had to open and see who go the paper with the black dot. The family member with the paper with the black dot was to be stoned.People all over the world follow traditions, but the real questions is do they know the meaning behind the tradition.

Stonings have been around for centuries, it is something I heard about as a child in Sunday school, something I thought was done in the past and not today. Stonings are alive to this day mostly in the middle east. more often than not women are stoned more than men. Convictions in Iran are based on witness testimony, judge conviction or confession; friends, family, neighbors and any other volunteers may participate in the stoning of a victim. Stoning is a horrific way to die, sometimes taking up to two hours to kill the victim. In the story “The Lottery” author Shirley Jackson has the towns people of the story stone one of their own as a sacrifice while in the middle east people are stoned as a punishment for “crime” this act of capital punishment is barbaric and should be banned.

Shirley Jackson uses, “The Lottery” to foreshadow an ironic ending. The peaceful town that was described in the lottery has an unusual lottery during the hot summer days. It was around ten o’clock when it started. This was very unusual because you would think that most parents are going to work or getting their children ready for school, but in this case it wasn’t. This was unusual for the kids because every summer for the rest of their lives they have to worry about being stoned to death, versus having a regular summer like a normal kid would. At some point in time you have to worry about saving your own life; this could be anyone and there was nothing you could to stop it. The cruel thing about it was that the children were told to build a pile of stones in one corner of the square. At one point in the book I didn’t know what was going to happen because on villager stated, “Well,” guess that’s everyone. Old man Warner make it?” At this point I thought everyone was going to be stoned to death and that created suspense from this point

In Jackson 's short story “The Lottery”, Jackson tells the story of a small town who is clearly strong about ‘tradition’. The small town, “New Hope”, feels so strong about tradition that they are willing to sacrifice one of their very own citizens annually to keep the tradition alive. Drawing tickets from the ‘black box’ helped indicate who the lucky citizen, from New Hope, was to be sacrificed. The twist to this story is that in fact, New Hope has lost sight of all tradition. The small town decides to make changes to their annual ritual that fits their needs. For example, instead of using chips of wood for the drawings, as done for generations, the town now uses marked sheets of paper. The only “tradition” that the town

In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the settings in the start of the short story creates a state of peace and quiet. This setting likewise paints a picture in the reader’s mind, the picture of a normal town on a typical summer day. Besides, Shirley Jackson utilizes the setting as a part of The Lottery to signal an ironic ending. Firstly, Shirley Jackson starts The Lottery by building up the setting.