To Further Understand The Text One Must Know The Literary

A lottery is a process that is entirely controlled by chance, whether there is loss or success is dependent on luck. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a small town that holds an annual lottery. The lottery itself is an age long tradition that started so long ago the ritual had been mostly forgotten. The villages around them have shut down the lottery, because of how old and forgotten the lottery is. This shows how people will blindly follow tradition no matter the age of it.(Jackson, “Read The Lottery...”).

We will try to dig first on the connection of Shirley Jackson to her writing “The Lottery”. Shirley Jackson was born in 1916 in San Francisco, California. One of her masterpieces was "The Lottery," the most argumentative piece and well known story about a village that occurs in once year death practice. The New Yorker published the short story of Jackson at the year 1948, "The Lottery."

Thesis Statement: "The Lottery by Shirley Jackson" and " Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthrone" stories, Shirley Jackson encourages her readers to question their beliefs, actions, and the world by creating struggle.

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

“A stone hit her on the side of the head. "It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her” (34). “The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson which, sparked controversy when published in the June 26, 1948 issue of the New Yorker. Jackson used several different literary devices to support her theme that people who don’t question tradition get what they deserve. The literary devices Jackson uses to support the theme of ‘The Lottery’ are irony, foreshadowing, and pacing.

«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.

Only when we are introduced to Old Man Warner, the only man in the village old enough to remember some of the traditions, do we get an idea of the purpose of the lottery. It seems to be a pagan harvest ritual, as expressed by his old saying: ??Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon?? (Jackson 369). By participating in the lottery the villages crops will prove to be bountiful. He justifies the use of the lottery simply by stating ?There?s always been a lottery? (Jackson 369).

In the story there is only one explanation as to why the lottery is used.  This explanation is given by Old Man Warner, who himself has survived seventy six lotteries.  Old Man Warner states, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (77).  According to this, the lottery was used as a ritual to promote a plentiful harvest season.  In all societies the success of agriculture is vital to survival.  Farmers “can only wait and hope” that the harvest season will be successful. From this hope, meaningless rituals are created, even when the ritual has no direct relationship (Griffin 44).  The townspeople would sacrifice one of their citizens in hopes that it would in some way or another affect the results of the harvest.

I believe that “The Lottery” wants us to think about how we blindly follow traditions as members of society. In the beginning of this short story it explains how most of the villages don’t even know why the lottery is still being held. The initial situation is a suspense, because it’s a beautiful summer day and a lottery is being held. we are not told what the prize is for winning the lottery, but the suspense rises when the conflict comes about. The conflict is the Hutchinson family receiving the black spot, meaning they won.

“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.

The short story “The Lottery” takes place in a small village on June 27th where the town gathers for a yearly lottery draw. The lottery was set up and conducted by Mr. Summers who was the only one in the village who had enough time to do so. All the villagers gathered into the square at precisely ten o’clock, except Mrs. Hutchinson who lost track of time and arrived minutes late. Many of the kids were still scrambling around looking for stones and rocks shoving them into their pockets. Finally, names started to be called to pick a slip of paper, first the head of the family’s, then the head of the household’s. When Mr. Summers was finished calling all the heads of the family’s everyone opened their blank slip of paper except Mr. Hutchinson

Joyce Carol Oates grew up on a small farm, outside of the town Lockport, New York (“Joyce Carol Oates” Academy 1). She attended a small school that had one room in Lockport, and her family had been hit by the Great Depression while she was growing up (“Joyce Carol Oates” Academy 1). She first began writing when she was 14 because her grandmother gave her her first typewriter, which put her on her path to writing novels (“Joyce Carol Oates” Academy 1). After high school, Oates went to Syracuse University on a full ride scholarship and was valedictorian of her class (Moyer 1). After graduating from Syracuse, Oates moved on to earn her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, and there she got married to Raymond J. Smith (Moyer 1). From there she went to teach at the University of Detroit and the University of Windsor before finally reaching Princeton University (Moyer 1).

“The Lottery” documents a small village’s voting process for the lottery and the traditions that keep the town close. Some of the main characters are introduced in the initial scene of the townspeople gathering at the town square. The boys in the crowd search for rocks to add to a pile on the side of the square. The schoolgirls of the “village” are standing near them, talking amongst each other. The men of the village came back from work and talked about farming and finance issues farther away from the boys. Then the women, mothers of the children and housewives, emerged from their homes and gossiped before joining their husbands.

The lottery is a short story about a small town of villagers who once a year gather in the town square to carry out a tradition that is held every summer. Three important character in this story that I'm going to talk about are Mr. Joe Summers (the leader of The Lottery, Old Man Warner (The oldest man in town) and Tessie Hutchinson (the lucky winner of The Lottery).