Thy Shall Be Named in Shirley Jackson´s The Lottery

The Lottery, and Christianity Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”, if left at face value, is a perverse tale of a small village sacrificial ceremony, which leaves a lasting impression upon the reader. However to take the story at face value would nearly be an exercise in futility, for then the reader would be missing the deeper meanings found in the delicate symbolism that Jackson places throughout the tale.

Shirley Jackson exploits a true form of human nature in this story. The lottery, a deadly tradition, is a draw for death. The selfish need to survive is shown by all the townspeople, who stone the chosen one to death, be it their friend or family, with only the thought that they themselves survived. Every lottery, the people look at the black box, and desperately hope that they aren’t chosen. It is a gruesome reminder of what they have witnessed and taken part of; the murders of innocent

Shirley Jackson, the author of the short story “The Lottery” is an unusual story of a town caught in a trap of following tradition. Shirley Jackson uses many symbols in the story to relate to the theme. By doing this it helps the reader understand the story and the message she is trying to get across. Jackson uses tone, setting, and symbolism to conduct a theme for her readers. By doing this she creates connections to the theme by using the black box and old man Warner as a symbol.

Tess’s tone in her last words before being stoned is desperate and hysterical, because she knows that her protests will not result in anything but death. The black box used in the lottery each year isn’t something that the reader would usually associate with a happy lottery. The box is described as, “shabby…splintered…faded and stained,” yet no one in the community wants to replace it because, “no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.” The color black symbolizes the savage and evil nature of the lottery as well as the townspeople’s participation in it and the shabbiness of the box indicates how outdated the tradition truly is. Like the lottery, the box is well worn with its real purpose lost, and the townspeople are extremely reluctant in letting it go, even getting defensive when the idea of it is brought up. After the stoning of the “winner” occurs, the townspeople go on with their lives as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. The lottery takes less than two hours so that the townspeople could, “…get home for noon dinner,” immediately following the execution. The normalcy of the lottery to the townspeople is horrifying and all throughout the story everyone seems ok with this evil tradition, children are shown laughing and their parents, gossiping and talking about work. When Tess Hutchinson chooses the paper slip with a black dot making her the “winner”, Bill Hutchinson, her husband, as

Graves is in charge of the traditional lottery. Mr. Graves usually follows Mr. Summers for the events of the lottery and helps him set up the box and the stool. Mr. Graves has a name that changes the tone of the short story. Everything up until the mentioning of Mr. Graves' name has seemed normal. The rational behind his name is simple, graves follow the summers. Most of the items used during the lottery are used to bring death to one inhabitant of the town. "Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three legged stool..."(Jackson 364) which to the towns people meant that someone was going to die that day. Jackson chose the names of the masters of ceremonies very carefully using the season to name one and the outcome to call the other. Graves usually follow the lottery in this small town making Mr. Graves one the names that remind people of what's to

Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” warns readers of the consequences that come from blindly following tradition. She builds upon the fact that the people in the town follow the tradition of The Lottery without questioning it because it is tradition. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson uses suspenseful foreshadowing and portrays her characters as ignorant in order to suggest that blindly following traditions can lead to disastrous and even fatal consequences. Jackson creates a suspenseful setting in her story by inserting small hints of the lottery’s outcome in character’s dialogue and by dragging out the final lottery drawing to expand on the idea of how unfair the the tradition of the lottery is. Jackson expands on the idea that all

Tessie Hutchinson arrives late at the lottery saying, “clean forgot what day it was” and how she saw that the kids were gone and then she remembered what day it was and came running. The lottery was a very important day for some of the old townspeople. They would gather and pick one person to sacrifice which was believed to grow more crops. Old man Warner stated, “lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. Tessie Hutchinson ends up getting picked and then states, “this isn’t fair” and “it isn’t right” because she ended up getting

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” a town is set on the 27th of June. As the entire town is gathered, even the children, a representative from every household, usually the oldest male, goes up to a black, wooden box and selects a piece of paper at random. Once every household has a slip of paper, the entire village opens their respective slips as a group. Only paper one has a mark on it which signifies that they’ve been chosen. Each member from the chosen family draws another paper slip. The person with the dot on their paper is stoned to death by the entire village. Jackson uses foreshadowing and misdirection to direct the reader’s attention to the detail of the black box which conveys the theme of the power of the mob mentality by giving

It was a warm day that would end with a kind of tragedy even though the town’s people see it as something that has to happen. The lottery was something that took place as a tradition as a sacrifice for crops. One person would be stoned at the end of the lottery and in this case it was Tessie Hutchinson, a mother and a wife. In the story the main conflict is the lottery because it ends with the death of one of the towns people. There are many emotional triggers in the story, one being that someone asks Tessie’s own child pick up a rock and help stone her to death. Another one in this story is the helplessness that Tessie faced once she knew that she was the so called “winner” of the lottery, she helpless yells “It isn't fair, it isn't right.” In the story, the lottery is a metaphor for traditions that are used to inflict harm. It can be comparable to many traditions of today’s society that could be harmful to

Adams’ name is representative of Adam and Eve and the original sin. Then there is Delacroix,

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a short story taking place on June 27th in “the square, between the post office and the bank” (Jackson 419). In the story, the villagers are gathering together for their annual lottery drawing. The lottery is a tradition in which the surrounding towns have committed to participate in. The lottery’s winner is based upon a person who draws the slip of paper with the dark spot. The winner is murdered by the rest of the town members. In “The Lottery,” Jackson provides many symbols to prove the theme, traditions and customs, is a huge part of the villagers’ lives.

“The Lottery” is a fictional short story written by Shirley Jackson is a that signifies the obeying rules and tradition, as well as being rebellious. This all suggests that their not so lucky “lottery” is a conventional ceremony. The story centers on a small town on the town’s day of their once-a-year Lottery. The significance of the town Lottery is to ensure their belief to sacrifice in order to be given a plethora of rain to obtain a good farming season the coming year. The story focuses around the erroneous belief that if the villagers sacrifice a human to their Weather God, then the villagers will receive good weather to grow crops. The villagers believe that if they do not sacrifice, then they will be given insufficient farming conditions. “The Lottery” displays many literary elements throughout the pages, however, the ones that are most evident are the story’s setting, symbolism, and irony; the author constructs a paradoxical story through these elements.

     The actions involved with the lottery are symbolic also. At the beginning of the story the reader learns that the children are gathering stones into a big pile. This represents just how unconscious their actions are. The village is blind to it's own motives. Tessie was fine with the lottery until it was she who was the chosen one. Tessie becomes the scapegoat for the village. She is a symbol of disobedience and the other villagers must stone her to death to stop further outbreaks of rebellion against the lottery. They are unable to articulate their rebellion because the massive force of ideology stands in their way. "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones." (238) The tradition is so old that all they care about is stoning the victim without thinking about how evil the tradition really is.

The people of the village were consumed with their work, though the lottery shadowed their thoughts. Around ten o’clock (Jackson 43), the people gathered in tight lines in front of the bank. An ancient black box held rigidly in the post master’s hand, and Mr. Winters - a man personifying death itself - was prattling off the opening ceremony obligingly. Mrs. Warner, her face puffy with worry and morning wine, looked around nervously for her son. Unlike the other mothers, she stood alone: her husband had won the lottery the prior year.

Tessie Hutchinson strolls in late with not a care in the world. She, along with the townspeople, jokes around saying that they were going to miss her at this years lottery. She even states, "Clean forgot what day it was" (Jackson, 864). No one really seems worried that in an hour or so one of their neighbors will be stoned to death. The old worn out black box suggests that Jackson used a bit of irony to bring out the meaning of death. Black being a dark gothic color, and the oldness of the box suggests that the lottery is a tradition that has lasted for years. Old Man Warner, the town grandfather, supports the lottery and tries to make sure it lasts forever. This brings out the true meaning of Shirley Jackson’s story. Are there really towns and cities out there that actually do have old traditions similar to this? The story of "The Lottery" is a cry or a wake up call to everyone to step forward and stand up for what you believe in.