Theme Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

The Lottery “ In the story the lottery,” by Shirley Jackson the characters have different feelings about the lottery. The character Tessie Hutchinson felt it was unfair by saying things like “ You didn’t give him enough time to take any paper he wanted”. Tessie said that Mr. Summers didn’t give him enough time and that it's unfair, so she says that they should do it again or something. Tessie said those things because she is just a bad sport or a drama queen. Especially because everybody took the same chance as soon as they put there hand in the box.

When “The Lottery” begins, nothing seems unusual about this community, no hint of what is to come, or how heinous an act is about to occur. As they ready themselves for what seems to be a cheerful event, preparing as if to win something valuable, rather than to lose this lottery, eagerness and enthusiasm fill the air. The tradition, this community has been following, is overly duteous, more sheep like, illustrating the extent to which people will go to fit in, to be part of a crowd, to feel accepted. The theme of this story is a reflection on some of Shirley Jackson’s life, from her experiences as a wife in a small community in conjunction with her perspective of the events of WW II.

“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. The protagonist, Tessie Hutchinson is faced with the problem of receiving the paper that had the black dot and being stoned to death by the community when she thinks it is unfair by making excuses on why it should not be her. Jackson's’ use of indirect characterization of Tessie through her thoughts was effective under the realization that Tessie has a really hard time accepting the fact that she got the paper with the black dot and trying to make up excuses to get them to restart it. Tessie claims “‘You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!’” (Jackson 5) After Bill, Tessie's’ husband, had received the dot on the paper, the family had to

When a loving, caring, family oriented, women come in conflict with the horrible, despicable, inhumane lottery in a situation in which the town goes together, the results may be a terrible end in a young life. In “The Lottery” written by, Shirley Jackson, the main character Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson’s and the town folk are the main characters of this story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses the use of characterization to portray the main ideas of the story. Shirley Jackson also uses the use of plot structure and the point of view in which the story is being told. The Lottery is a way to make a sacrifice for a good harvest in the upcoming season.

    "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

Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” is about a bizarre ritual performed in a town in which the townspeople proceed to follow every year. In a black, worn box they place all the names of the community. Once all the names are placed inside, Mr. Summers draws a name. After the name is chosen, this member will be stoned to death by the others in the community. Tessie Hutchinson in the story tries to reject the repetitive tradition of the lottery.

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

Tessie Hutchinson being one to protest the lottery when her husband wasn’t given enough time to choose, yet he did nothing for her when she was chosen. For the sake of tradition, these people are giving up the lives of their friends and family, their loved ones. Multiple times in the story, it shows that people are eager to finish the lottery and go back about their business. Some examples include a mother wishing her son could draw in the lottery for her if he were of age. No one in this town wants to die themselves, and yet are still laying down the lives of others to continue this twisted tradition.

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.”

Where does fear come from? Does it give us courage or does it paralyze us? Is it always rational or do we sometimes fear what we don’t understand? “The Lottery” and “Big Black Good Man” are two short stories that offer a glimpse into fear and the rationality or irrationality of that fear.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story based on a fictional village that holds a macabre ritual. Although the regularity was not stated within the tale, the story speaks of a regular gathering of the village folk to conduct some form of lottery. In a disturbing twist of the tale, the winner of the lottery doesn’t get to receive a prize, but instead, suffer the indignity of being killed by getting stoned to death by friends, family, and neighbors. Mrs. Hutchinson is the unfortunate soul, who, despite her pleas and protests has no option but accept her fate. In a similarly titled story, The Lottery by Chris Abani talks about an incident he witnessed when he went to the market with his aunt. In the story, Abani explains how he

In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses symbolism and imagery to convey the message that blindly following traditions can negatively impact society. While reading this story, there begins to be a more powerful meaning behind the words. It starts to emerge when the author uses imagery like this “ Because so much of the ritual forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips substituted for the chips of wood that have been used for generations.” The theme emerges with this image because the people don’t really know or care about why they are the following a certain tradition.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a story of an unusual town caught in a trap of always following tradition, even when it is not in their best interest. Jackson uses symbols throughout the story that relate to the overall theme. This helps the reader clearly understand her main message. Jackson uses setting, tone and symbols to convey a theme to her audience. By doing so she creates significant connections to the theme using old man Warner and the black box as examples.

“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson in the late 1940’s. Shirley Jackson was a middle 1900’s writer known for the horror and mystery in her writing. One of her stories was “The Lottery”, which was based of a cult like society, where someone was sacrificed for what they thought was the better of the communities tradition. The theme of this short story was the danger of following tradition blindly. The story is about a family who has to deal with the sacrifice of tradition.

“The Lottery” a short story by Shirley Jackson, features a small town during the time of their lottery. The lottery is an annual event, organized by Mr. Summers. It is a highly important time, as the whole town comes to the town square on the day of the lottery. The guidelines are quite simple: everyone takes a slip of paper out of the symbolic black box, and the slip of paper with the black mark carved on it, is the “lucky winner”. But their definition of the lottery is different一usually, a lottery is a valuable thing to win. But when Tessie Hutchinson, the “lucky winner” gets her reward by getting stoned to death by the rest of the villagers, it is clear that winning this lottery can't be a good affair... So what is the purpose of this lottery? Rather than discontinuing the lottery, the town continues with it because they don't want to upset an old tradition.