Irony In The Lottery

Kosenko, Peter. "A Reading of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’." New Orleans Review 12.1 (1985): 27-32.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a terrify story about a small town and their traditions. The Ending of the lottery is the most shocking many of its readers have ever read. Why is it so shocking. Well Shirley jackson uses sybolism and simple narritive and her normal life to convey such a shock.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a story filled with sunny weather and boisterous play and a town filled with a what seems like a burden--a lottery to see who will be the one to leave their town and the Earth forever. For many people, this story is dark, compelling, and mind boggling, yet it also feels that it gives a warning to humanity and to the entire face of the Earth. I believe that Shirley Jackson is warning us about what humanity is capable of doing, and how people conform blindly to society’s expectations. Throughout the story, many signs of this is shown from the year the story was written to the very last sentence.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is entirely constructed of Symbolism. From the very title “The lottery” it allows our minds to think of the joyous occasion of winning, or gaining from something because that is what a lottery is. There is no prize but there is a risk in the drawing. Essentially every part of the story represents an idea the author wants the reader to explore. The names of the characters, the setting, the block box and the overall tradition to follow are suspenseful. Trying to interpret each symbolic message is what makes this story so attention-grabbing. It is also what makes this story so perplexed because the author doesn’t give all the answers in full. Jackson allows you to try to make your own interpretations. The ritual of The Lottery itself is the most interesting aspect to dissect its meaning(s).

For The lottery would you believe that you put your name in a black box and your family gets picked and you get a black dot your gonna believe “Oh My Lord Did I Win Anything”. Nope, you're gonna get stoned to the face and to the body and your already dead to the point you even realize it. It is amazing to think about the irony in this story for years, these people have made a tradition out of this and the people are fine with it, Don’t you think it could have gone another or different way. Like For example instead of getting stoned they could have just banished or send you away and never to be seen again but let me fill you in on the story so basically imagine this, There is a clear and sunny morning the flowers were blossoming and it was a

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a classic short story in U.S literature. Written in 1948, the short story has been published in multiple languages around the world. It is still a required reading in U.S today. The story was later adapted into both a TV short and a play (“Shirley Jackson’s Bio”). Jackson uses irony and symbolism in “The Lottery” to show the corruption of human nature.

“Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control” (Pinker). In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson is able to create a sense of horror with and within the characters. All of the characters show a great deal of sadness, not only because of the ritual that they take part of, but because they have lost all emotion partaking in the ritual. Throughout “The Lottery”, the plot and characters reveal how foolish and corrupted human nature can be.

Tradition is highly valued by people throughout the world. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” it is tradition to sacrifice a person once a year for good harvest. The villagers gather around Mr. Summers, who has a black box sitting on a stool, to see who will choose a folded piece of paper with a dot on it. Whichever family has the dot will have to draw again, and the family member who draws it next is stoned. The three-legged stool, black box, and stones used in the story all show a great deal of symbolism.

When you hear the word “lottery”, what do you think? In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, readers are presented with an ironic, dramatic, bleak tale about a small village gathering for not exactly what one would call a lottery. Born in San Francisco, California in 1916, Jackson spent much of her early life writing poetry and journal entries. After enrolling in the University of Rochester, she eventually withdrew to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer. Jackson later decided to attend Syracuse University, where she published a variety of fiction and nonfiction campus magazines. After graduating and getting married in 1940, Jackson then moved to New York City, where she printed her first national short story. In 1948, The Lottery, one of her most famous short stories of all time was published. The story had its first of several television adaptations in 1952. While most of Jackson’s work is credited to her horrendous and comedic tales, she seems to master the morality theme as well (Hrebik). Many authors claim to have been influenced by her works: Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson. Although Jackson’s stories often confuse many critics, that is what makes her tales so popular today. Years later, she is still regarded as one of the most remarkable and influential authors of the twentieth century. The idiosyncratic and engaging techniques allow readers develop their own idea of what they are reading. In

When my mother grew up, her half Swedish mother had a tradition of making oyster stew for Christmas. According to my mother, oyster stew consisted of a disgusting, runny, soup-like substance with fishy tasting, mushy oysters squirming around in it. For my grandmother, that tradition brought back a piece of Swedish heritage that she must stick by, even though she didn't know why it had become tradition. For the rest of the family, it was a horrific, morbid occurrence that almost ruined the otherwise blissful holiday of Christmas. Eventually, the rest of the family convinced her to switch up the Christmas Day board of fare, but not without taking away a tradition she loved. Human beings love to stick to their traditions at all costs, and nowhere does one see that more than in the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. “The Lottery” tells the story of a village which has an annual tradition of holding a lottery in which they choose one resident of the village to kill. Shirley Jackson uses irony and symbolism to show how people must not blindly follow tradition without a reason.

What is the first thing you think of when you hear about a lottery? I thought someone would win money. “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson. It is based on a small town in 1948. I like “The Lottery” because you think you know what's going to happen but the opposite happens. We tend to think tradition is always good, but sometimes traditions are bad. Shirley Jackson uses different literary devices such as foreshadowing, irony, and tone.

Usually when someone hears the word “lottery” the first thing that comes to mind is a large sum of cash that people compete against highly impractical odds to win. Shirley Jackson’s story The Lottery might imply a similar conception based on the title alone, but the story is filled with unknowns never revealing exactly when and where the story takes place, or why the lottery exists; even what the lottery is isn’t revealed until the very end. Yet despite Jackson’s omission of details in The Lottery, she manages to create an overtone of mystery that compels the reader to grasp the world of the story rather than define it in terms of the physical world and form their own opinions.

“The Lottery” is a mysterious and well-thought out story written by Shirley Jackson. This story isn’t at all as it seems, it is actually quite deceiving. When reading the title, one would think this story is about a town having a lottery, and a winner is claiming a prize. This is all true, but we don’t get to know what the actual lottery is until the end of the story, which isn’t money. It is something far worse. The theme of the story is about tradition. Every year this town had a ottery that all the townspeople participate in. This story has multiple tones, such as peaceful, anxious, and horrific that supports the theme. The tone constantly shifts throughout the story.

The lottery fools everyone with how amazing it really seems. They start by talking about how nice it is outside “clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer.” Then the end of the story throws you off by how awful it really is. The main idea of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is that if you win the lottery you will have stones thrown at you until you are dead. In each story, it is clear that the author uses symbols to show the violence and cruelty that people have. They didn’t want to get rid of the lottery because they don’t want to change, their crops may not grow. Some of the stories most important symbols are the stones, they use to throw, the black box that shows that tradition, and the paper with the black dot on it to chose who will be killed by the stones.

In June of 1948, Author Shirley Jackson wrote a short story for The New Yorker titled The Lottery. The Lottery is a story about an annual town gathering set in a small village which ultimately ends with the senseless act of stoning one of its citizens. The protagonist, Tessie Hutchinson, is referred to as being the victim of the violence. Various elements in the text suggest a larger problem within the story’s context. Some of these elements are characterized by interpreting symbols throughout the reading such as traditional objects, the roles of villagers and the event as a whole. By carefully examining every avenue leading up to her brutal murder, one can determine that the event was entirely preventable and unnecessary. But because the aspects of tradition and culture were driving forces, it was unrealistic for the villagers to abandon the practice despite its negative outcome. Fundamentally, the Lottery represents a sinister side of tradition, and as such, the catastrophic consequences of adhering blindly to herd mentality.