Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

     Furthermore, Old Man Warner is horrified at the thought of ever stopping the lottery. When another villager speaks of other towns that have done away with the lottery he says, ?Pack of crazy fools? (Jackson 369),and ?Nothing but trouble in that? (Jackson 369)

Throughout the story, mainly in pages 1 and 2, we read how the lottery tradition first started when people first settled and made the village. The tradition is so old, that one of the objects they use in the ritual, the black box, is older than the oldest man in town. Throughout the story, Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, complains about how things weren’t the way they used to be. This means that most of the lottery’s traditions had been forgotten, which implies that most of the villagers don’t even know why they participate

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.

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.

In her short story, “The Lottery”, Sheila Jackson invites us into the square of a small village on a warm summer day (247). It is not just any day. It is the 27th of June; an annually anticipated day for this community (Jackson, 247). The scene is described to depict a pre-technology era, most likely resembling an early American town. They have postal service, a school, and a bank, but no mention of devices, such as telephones, or modern transportation is made. (Jackson, 247). It is possible that the author wanted to represent the very basic elements in our humanity when choosing the setting.

The village does not want to break away from this tradition. This way of thinking will not get you nowhere. The negative effect of keeping traditions the same is that There are some folks in the town who want the lottery to end, but because of tradition, that is looked at as foolish. " Used to be a saying about "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." (Jackson)

     The plot as a whole in “The Lottery” is filled with ironic twists. The whole idea of a lottery is to win something, and the reader is led to believe that the winner will receive some prize, when in actuality they will be stoned to death by the rest of the villagers. The villagers act very nonchalant

The Lottery starts off as a normal everyday community that is preparing for this event like it is an everyday thing, the people are preparing for a normal day the children are playing the women are socializing. We see that they use an older man to start of the festivities and we also see the random foreshadowing of a black box. The tradition starts off picking names out of the box which later results in the death of a fellow community member. They blindly follow behind the tradition of the numerous deaths that happen annually and never once analyze why it is that they are killing people and ambushing them for something that they didn’t do. The tradition follows them and they simply allow it to make them conformers of the unknown. Shirley Jackson shows us through her short story that when following behind something that you’re not too sure of you end up being blindsided by the truth as well as being naïve to the things that really matter most to

According to Anais Nin, a prominent Spanish author, "When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. " Shirley Jackson was born in 1919 in San Francisco, California to Leslie and Geraldine Jackson. She is most well known for her short story titled “The Lottery” which was first published in The New Yorker to overwhelming and mixed reviews. The lottery, as portrayed in the short story, is a religious, annual ceremony in the afternoon of June 27. This event is said to be older than Old Man Warner and has lost most of its meaning. Every year, a “lucky” winner is blindly chosen with the use of a magical, black box to be stoned to death with the hopes it will produce rain for their

I have lived in this village for as long as I can remember, and it has been some of the best years of my life. The townspeople have been very generous to me and my family, and I am truly grateful for their hospitality. Due to, never stepping foot outside the village, I decided to take a trip. I chose to travel to the northern village, and see how they go about their everyday lives. To be honest Mr. Summers, I did not see much difference except for one not so little change. With this in mind, these villagers decided to turn over the tradition of The Lottery. Despite everything, I was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. These past few days, a lot of my questions were asked and a lot of them were answered. The villagers put an end

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was written in 1948. The story takes place in a village square of a town on June 27th. The author does not use much emotion in the writing to show how the barbaric act that is going on is look at as normal. This story is about a town that has a lottery once a year to choose who should be sacrificed, so that the town will have a plentiful year for growing crops. Jackson has many messages about human nature in this short story. The most important message she conveys is how cruel and violent people can be to one another. Another very significant message she conveys is how custom and tradition can hold great power over people. Jackson also conveys the message of

“Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep growing” (Jackson, 2). The town never had an overpopulation issue, there was never a good enough reason to continue the lottery and even less start it for that matter. The social hierarchy of the town did not allow the people to have a voice and that made them feel intimidated. The people were almost programed and expected to accept and carry this unfair tradition; not because of the meaning of it but because they were scared to ask to let it go in results of things getting worse.

On page 22 and on page 23 Mr. Adams informs Mr. Warner that some places have already quit the lottery, these consist of the north village and other places. Mr. Warner replied back by calling them fools. According to him there is only trouble for people who quit the lottery, in his mind nothing good would come out of that. Page 16 explained how their was a lot of ritual, and how they people of the village decided against changing their sacred black box. Although it was splintered and cracked the village didn’t even want to change it. This shows that there was a lot of religion in their practice. They find it really sacred and believe it will probably help their

Without the lottery, however, there would not be a murder for the villagers to take pleasure in. Seymore Lainhoff supports this image of savagery by saying that the theme of the lottery is that “beneath our civilized surface, patterns of savage behavior are at work” (1). The villagers continue the tradition because the lottery gives them an outlet for the meanness that they have a fondness for. Helen Nebeker makes this claim in her essay “The Lottery: Symbolic Tour de Force”, the lottery ritual does not just provide “a channel to release repressed cruelties” but it “actually serves to generate the cruelties” (102). With every lottery that passes, their need for cruelty grows. As this need grows it makes them crave more.

Shirley Jackson was born on December 14, 1916, in San Francisco. She spent her childhood in nearby Burlingame where she began writing poetry and short stories as a teenager. Shirley is known as one of the most impressive and persuasive authors of the twentieth century. Her best piece of work is the short story “The Lottery” published on the June 26, 1948, revealed a frightening underside of a rural American village. In ‘the lottery’ a human being stoned to death and her fate is decided by the black box that contained the paper with the black spot. That innocent person becomes the victim of violence and cruelty by the community. However, the community still believed that what they are doing will somehow benefit them in the form of good crop.