What Is The Theme Of The Lottery By Guy De Maupassant

"The Lottery", is a story about how people stick to tradition. It describes how painstakingly people do not give up tradition and would rather kill someone than give it up. In the beginning, all of the townspeople are gathered in the TownSquare just as they do every year on this day. All the man and women are

“The Necklace” develops the theme of irony through Madame Loisel’s constant need for money and jewels. The first example of irony is when she borrows the necklace to appear wealthy, then loses all her wealth. When Madame Loisel begins to worry about how she will appear to the other wealthy people, her husband tells her to go borrow jewelry from her friend, Madame Forestier (Maupassant 4). The very

Her husband tries and tries until he comes up with a great idea to give her an invitation to a ball. She cheers up a little until she realizes she can’t afford a dress. Her husband asks how much and had given her the money to purchase herself a nice dress. She has the dress but still doesn’t feel pretty nor happy after she put the dress on. She wanted more than just the dress which was jewels but didn’t have any. Someone suggested that she should use flowers, but didn’t find happiness in the flowers. Madame Forestier offer Mathilde to borrow her diamond necklace, which gave her the emptiness that she needed to feel happy. She had a great night and was on her way home when she went to feel for the necklace but found that it was gone. She started to panic and retraced her steps but couldn’t find it anywhere. She and her husband went from jeweler to jeweler to find the exact necklace and to replace it. They worked and worked until they had paid it off and returned it to Madame Forestier. She was a little annoyed since she had got it a few weeks after the ball. Eventually she admitted to what she had done and was surprised with what she was told. She was informed that the necklace was a fake. That it was costume jewelry. In this story the Madame was an outsider towards Mathilde. Mathilde didn’t know who she was and had taken the necklace to wear for the

«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.

In the first paragraph, Madame Lantin is characterized as quiet and gentle young girl, belonging to a poor and respectable family. The line “The young girl seemed to be the very ideal of that pure good woman to whom every young man dreams of entrusting his future” (Maupassant 67) establishes the personality and traits of Madame Lantin for the readers. Until the death of Madame Lantin in the story, her character is portrayed in a positive light, as the narrator describes her caring and naïve nature. Towards the end of the story, When Mr. Lantin finds out that the Jewelries are much more valuable than his expectations, the image of Madame Lantin takes a dramatic turn, and the reference of reality is made when the narrator says “A horrible suspicion swept across his mind . . . She? . . . But then all those other pieces of jewelry must have been presents also! . . . Then it seemed to him that the ground was heaving under his feet; that a tree, right in front of him, was falling toward him” (Maupassant 70). This shows that Mr. Lantin have conclusively realized the truth about Madame Lantin, whom he was deeply in love with, and admired for all this time. He realizes that just like Jewelry, He failed to apprehend the truth about her, hence realizing that Things are not always what they seem to be. Another theme presented in the story is Situational Irony, as the outcome that the readers expected was distinct from the outcome. As Mr. Lantin finds

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

Lantin had a job as chief clerk in the office of the minister of the interior with a salary of 3,500 fences a year which is roughly 30,000 to 40,000 dollars today (90). Throughout the story Lantin appears to be a passive man and being passionately in love with his wife. The two faults Lantin found in his wife was her love for theater and appetite for fake jewelry and he did not interject with her life style (90). The friends of Lantin’s wife would always stop by to drop off tickets for the theater for the couple to join however, Lantin had very little interest in theater and convinced his wife to attend with her lady friends (91). In the first half of the story, Lantin’s wife describes her love for fake jewelry when she states “one can’t make oneself over again” and she also said to her husband that she treasured jewelry very much (91). When she would tell her husband about her love for jewelry, Lantin would smile and would say “you have the tastes of a regular Gypsy” (91). Furthermore, sometimes in the evening Lantin’s wife would take her morocco box filled with her fake jewelry put it on the tea-table to examine what she had (91). She would even put it on her husband as a joke but then she would always jump into his arms and kiss him

In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, tells the story of a small town that gathers once a year to do a lottery. This isn’t your typical lottery. In this lottery the winner loses instead of winning. The winner is stoned to death as a part of “tradition”. The town people blindly follow this tradition and are unwilling to change. Tradition is one of the main themes in this story and it should be left alone.

The internal conflicts established in “The Necklace” were a result of Madame Loisels perception of happiness. Because of her ungrateful and dejected views on life, she didn’t realize nor recognize true merriment. In the text, Guy De Maupassant shows how Madame “..was one of those pretty and charming girls born as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of

One can also only speculate that how Madame Lantin’s insatiable craving for jewels, that her husband cannot afford, is motivated by the socioeconomic condition of the world in which she moves. When Maupassant explains that Madame Lantin is extremely reluctant at first to go out in the evenings without her husband to escort her, he gives the reader one of the only clues about her possible feelings as she makes the transformation from a dutiful and virtuous wife into a woman who is extravagantly showered with expensive gems by other men. (Constantakis 1)

Even though Madame Loisel married a clerk, she still had a “peasant who did her humble house-work”(Maupassant, 1). That is one more reason that she should be appreciative - she is still above a peasant and does not have to do her housework! She does not even resemble “the woman of impoverished households… frowsy hair, skirts askew, and red hands…”(Maupassant, 5) that she eventually ends up due to her atrocious personality and foolish choices. Additionally, on the night of the ball, “she danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk with pleasure, forgetting all…”(Maupassant, page 3). It is wonderful that Madame Loisel could enjoy herself for once, but she only pays attention to the men who are smitten with her dazzling looks. The lady’s poor husband slept “since midnight, in a little deserted anteroom”(Maupassant, 3) and they do not leave until four o’clock in the morning! Married couples go to dances to spend time with each other, not to catch attention from the opposite gender. Lastly, when her husband covers her shoulders with “modest wraps of common life”(Maupassant, 3) she feels ashamed because other women’s coats were made out of fur. Rather than being pleased that she has a loving and caring husband who does not want her

The allegory also plays a pivotal role in portrayal of Mr. and Madame Lantin’s character in the story. In this story, it is an allegory that uses Jewelry to construe the condition of Mr. Lantin. Throughout the story, Lantin believes that the Jewelries his wife are in possession of are fake, at the same time depicting Madame Lantin as a woman satisfied with her life. Many of the references made throughout the story advances the readers to believe that everything is going well in their marriage life. Towards the end of the story, as Mr. Lantin finds out that the jewelries are not fake, realizing her deceit, and false love. In this case, the Jewelries symbolizes his life, and the false reality he lived in for long.

Monsieur Lantin, of Guy De Maupassant’s, “The Jewelry” is a man married to a woman who he became infatuated with over the influence of others, resulting in their marriage, and her eventual untimely death; shortly after her death it is revealed that she lived a mysterious life with her not-so-fake jewels. Madam Lantin’s character is revealed from the perspective of her husband, by way of Maupassant using third person point of view, consequently making her a flat character. Monsieur relies upon his wife to conserve his ever so quaint lifestyle. Monsieur is that of a dynamic individual, in the sense that he has the ability to adapt to life by a swayed decision making method, usually resulting in their misplaced value in his happiness. Based on the context in this short story, it is safe to say that Monsieur takes life at face value, is critical of two of his wife’s habits, and eventually becomes overwhelmed with skepticism concerning his emotional and financial life.

As said before, one of Maupassant’s signature style of writing is filling the story with constrast, irony, sarcasm and some twists to set up “The Necklace” background and to emphasize his view of a deceitful wealthiness in a culture distorted by money and fame. He starts with the prettiness of Madame Matilda Loisel, so enchanting that “if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks” (380). It portrays a steoreotype a beauty woman must come along

Based on the story “The Jewelry” by Maupassant, a young lady who has pure personality seeks a man to marry her with the help of her mother dear. She found love when she met a man named M. Lantin at the house of the office-superintendent. After they are married and they are not blessed with children. This young lady who comes from poor family has a passion to collect an array of jewelry and loves the theater as a way to entertain herself from getting bored at home. This lady’s passion of collecting jewelries and loves of theater made her intolerable habits and unfortunately, even made her husband broke. This young lady was called Madame Lantin for being classy and elegant. She wore fancy dresses and fancy jewelries when she goes out to the theater with her colleagues. Moreover, her unexpected death made her husband out of control from grief. M. Lantin never expected that his love of his life would go to heaven suddenly, so he made himself being miserable until he found out that he had nothing left. When M. Lantin found out that the jewelry collection from his wife was expensive and the jewelry was real not a