Essay on Shirley Jackson's The Lottery - Inhumanity Exposed

"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

I believe the inner story of “The Lottery” is ignorance. When I was reading the story, I never saw the ending coming until the first lottery where Mrs.Hutchinson protested the result. Everything just looks fine before that scene. It looks almost like a town with an annual celebration event of harvesting(Since Old Man Warner said “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”.) and the lottery was a reward for

     'The Lottery'; is started out by being described as 'The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day.'; The flowers are blooming and the children have just gotten out of school for the summer. To the everyday reader this story starts out as a pleasant one but

“The Lottery” takes place in a small village of only three hundred people in America. The beginning of the story sets a scene of a beautiful summer day in which the flowers are in full bloom and everyone is out and about, getting prepared for the mysterious event only referred to as “the lottery.” The children are depicted collecting stones, but no reason for this is given. The leader of the village’s coal business, Mr. Summers, and other men of the village prepare for the lottery as a crowd gathers. They bring out a black box containing slips of paper. A woman named Mrs. Hutchinson hurries over, apparently late. Mr. Summers takes role and after role is taken, one person from each

There was one last ironic element displayed. Irony is found in the fact that the women who was complaining and soon killed in the end was the only women speaking up and making a joke about the lottery before the drawing occurred. The women named Tessie jokingly states: “Get up there, Bill” (4). When her husband 's name was called. She acts as if this whole event is all fun and games, and probably does not think she will pick the paper with the black spot making her the one to be stoned. After her jokes, her family is selected to pick out of the box again. She picks

What do you think of when you hear the words "The Lottery?" Do you think of scratch off tickets, matching numbers, winning prizes, or becoming rich? I doubt when you hear it you think of gambling or sacrificing your life away for your own villages better crops. Shirley Jackson shows many examples of symbolism in her story The Lottery one of which being the name itself. The title "The Lottery" provokes a sense of wealth or completeness in life. The main symbolism examples in The Lottery are the black box , black dot, and the names of the villagers help to foreshadow the death at the end of the story.

In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, Jackson writes the story from a third person’s point of view to tell a story about this village that celebrates this annual event. The narrator tells us all these details about the event but leaves the most important detail out until the very end. When people normally hear the word “Lottery” they quickly think winning is a positive thing but for the villagers in “The Lottery” winning isn’t something they look forward to. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” uses irony, foreshadowing, and symbolism to build suspense throughout the story and make the ending of the story a realization rather than a surprise to the reader.

“The Lottery” was written in the objective point of view. The story was written only telling the reader what is happening. The reader does not know what is happening in any of the characters heads. The narrator is like a camera only telling the reader what is happening. The reader does not know what any of the characters are thinking. The story is about this lottery where the reader does not find out what type of lottery it is until the end. The story was trying to say that people should think about their decisions and not follow the laws without questioning them. The story was interesting because when one reads “lottery” they would think of money, but in this story if someone's name is drawn, they get stoned. All the characters in this story

“The Lottery” is about a town and their tradition. Each year everyone from the community gathers in the town square and the head of each family goes up to the front and draws a piece of paper (Jackson). Once every family has drawn a paper they are allowed to look at it. This particular year the Hutchinson family received “it”. The Hutchinson family then goes to the front and each member draws another card. Tess Hutchinson received the card with the black dot and the reader then finds out Tess’s fate. Since Tess drew that specific card she will be stoned to death. The theme of “The Lottery” is tradition and society.

The Lottery consists of many ideas that were derived from the recent war, WWII. The lottery in this story could possibly represent the draft that occurred during the war, as they have some close connections. In both the lottery and the draft, people were selected by chance, and were afraid of being chosen. This is because if you were drafted you were likely to die in battle, and if you won the lottery you were killed by your fellow townspeople. This fear is expressed in the story by the tension the reader feels between the townspeople. All of their conversations are very casual, and consist of a lot of small talk and gossip. Another connection between the lottery and the draft is the reaction of the people who get chosen. In both the lottery and the draft, the people who were actually chosen felt it was unfair, as well as close friends and family members. On the other hand, the rest of the people felt it was completely fair, because everybody had the same odds and they were relieved that they didn’t get chosen. The unfair nature of the lottery was expressed in The Lottery when “Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, ‘You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!’” (Jackson 260). Tessie’s claim is invalid, as it doesn’t matter how much time one has to choose, they still have the same odds of being chosen. Jackson likely wrote

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 last of these elements is irony. It is extremely ironic that the story’s protagonist, Tessie Hutchinson, is late to the lottery that will be the event of her demise, as she “clean forgot what day it was” and had been doing the dishes. When she arrives at the village square, she stands in the back of the crowd with the other wives, so far back she ‘“craned her neck to see through the crowd”(Jackson), though she would soon be called up to the front when her family ‘wins’ the Lottery. It is also ironic that she was lighthearted, even chatting and joking with the other wives until her family was selected. She complains to Mr. Summers that he didn’t give her husband enough time to pick his slip of paper, even though his selection was the same time as everyone else’s. And no matter how much her husband and

Shirley Jackson uses irony to grasp one’s attention. While reading the story, “The Lottery,” readers assume what may happen in the next scene, but a twist soon takes place. For instance, the readers do not expect anything unusual about the stones other than kids playing around. Jackson creates the readers thought by saying, “Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call in their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones” (Jackson,1). Soon after reading further into the story, readers find out the children’s stones will actually be used on own of their own neighbors not for fun and games. Likewise, readers imagine a beautiful day when reading, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (1). Yet, at the end of

“The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson, is one of the most crucial pieces of literature to read as well as learn about. This piece was published in 1948 and caused a stir in the literature world. In “The Lottery,” Jackson uses tone throughout the story to help portray the theme. Jackson creates an absolute, barbaric tradition to illustrate the crowds’ mentality and the townspeople’s inability to speak out against injustice when perpetrated by their neighbors.

“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson about a small village that does a lottery with a horrid result. The story first starts out with all the people at the town square waiting for the lottery, an annual tradition to start. Once the lottery starts the head of all the households must go to the box to select a slip of paper for their family, in which the Hutchinsons win, then have to select another piece of paper for each family member. Tessie Hutchinson picks the slip of paper with the black dot, which meant that she was going to get stoned to death by the rest of the villagers. There were many themes in The Lottery but Shirley Jackson emphasizes the theme of tradition through the whole story. Tradition should not be done if it cause harm to someone. Jackson’s use of tone, situational irony, and symbolism helps emphasize the theme of tradition.