Traditions in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

The stones that the boys gather in the beginning are a good source of symbolism. “...the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones…” (Jackson 1). Their choice of these certain rocks symbolizes how cruel this tradition is. The purpose of these smooth rocks is that they will cause a long painful death which was taught by their elders example. A black box that is used to pull the slips of paper out of, to determine the winner, is a strong source of symbolism. “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (Jackson 1). She also writes “The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained” (Jackson 2). Black is the color of the box, but black also represents death that the tradition holds. She states that the box grows shabbier every year. This could be compared the tradition itself. Every year this tradition gets shabbier, and other villages have gotten rid of this horrific tradition. Eventually the box will fall apart and never be rebuilt in hopes that the tradition will too.

“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the

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.

    "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.

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.

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.

“The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, is a short story with an unexpected outcome. The townspeople gather on June 27th in the warm summer air to hold their annual lottery. The lottery starts off by each head-of-household drawing. The family who receives the slip of paper with the black dot then has each member of the family draw. The final winner--the one who has the paper with the dot--receives the shocking and vile prize of being stoned to death by their fellow townspeople. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, uses irony to show how the actions of the townspeople directly reflects ideals society has placed on the entire town.

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

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,

In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you go on a ride of emotions with the characters in the development of their lives during this ritualistic Lottery that takes place. The ideal of the story is a lottery is head every year in which all the townspeople's names are put in a lottery and drawn from. The person whose name is chosen will become the chose one of the town and use as a sacrifice of sorts. They will be sacrificed as an offering to be blessed with better crops for the following year. So as the happy townsfolk do their “wonderful” lottery the one chosen wasn’t so happy as the rest. Tessie Hutchinson was chosen and has to be sacrificed by stoning for the greater good of her village, but once chosen her views on the whole matter swing in a heartbeat. The whole theme of the story is how tradition for some can vary for people to people, but In the lottery is it their tradition wrong or right in there minds. We have to determine if the mob of townsfolk are wrong or right for stoning the housewife Tessie to death for their beliefs in the lottery.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a mysterious story riddled with hidden meanings. If the reader carefully examines the story he or she can discover the true purpose of the lottery, before it is revealed. The true form of this lottery is not a typical raffle it is not to win money; it is to win a chance to live. A game of chance, to see whom the black box kill this year? Each year on January 27th everyone gathers, young and old, to draw from the fateful box, the unfortunate winner of the drawling is then stoned to death. The most prevalent symbols in the short story are the smooth stones used to carry out the murder, and secondly, the black box which carries two meanings, it signifies death, but it also embodies tradition.

People throughout the world do things for many different reasons. Religion, peer pressure, or tradition are some of the reasons the people do things. In the U.S. we have many traditions such as Christmas. Some people have strange or out of the ordinary traditions. The two short stories ?The Lottery? and ?A Rose for Emily? both portray 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.

Communities from all around the world have their own traditions and rituals. Sometimes, people still celebrate a tradition that has been celebrated since the establishment of their community. Consequently, the people who celebrate this tradition might have forgotten its significance. It the short story titled “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, the population of the village still celebrate a tradition that has been created a long time ago. This story makes us believe that it is just and ordinary tradition in an ordinary town.