“The most violent element in society is ignorance.“(Emma Goldman) The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a small town that holds an annual lottery to decide who out of the town’s people gets sacrificed to insure the crops grow. No one in the community questions this tradition, willingly killing a citizen yearly. In her work ‘The Lottery’, Jackson uses foreshadowing, suspense and symbolism to illustrate how a single life’s value is decreased in favour of preserving the supposed well-being of the rest of the civilization. Foreshadowing is used broadly in The Lottery too show the violent reality of the community. Before the lottery begins a group of men watching their children are talking, telling stories and when a joke was …show more content…
When the community gets together for the lottery they pick white slips of paper randomly out of a box. If you pull a slip with a black dot on it means that one of your family members must succumb to their death. The white slips of paper symbolize the equality throughout all of the citizens the fact that any one of them come to terms with the same fate. It represents the inescapable death and shows that while the lottery is gruesome it is fair. When Tessie Hutchinson is chosen to be sacrificed she realizes how horrifying the whole situation is and screams out “It wasn’t fair!” still believing that they didn’t give her husband enough time to pick a paper slip (5). Mrs. Graves says what the rest of the community is thinking, “ All of us took the same chance.” Showing that every citizen is equal in this situation (5). Furthermore, both the black dot on the paper slips and the black box used to hold the paper slips during the lottery both symbolize something grimmer. The dark colour represents the death one citizen must face, the box itself simulates a coffin, it is a dark box that holds the cruel fate for a poor soul. The box also speaks for the fading tradition of the lottery. While this town continues to hold the annual sacrifice other communities have given up this practice. The box is “no longer completely black, but splintered badly along one side” (2). It is in terrible shape showing how this society is
In films, especially short films, it’s tough to use foreshadowing without revealing the plot. Obvious foreshadowing makes a story predictable, and predictable stories are never fun to watch. The Lottery is the exact opposite of predictable. The town seems completely normal until the very end, when Jackson throws the horrifying truth of the lottery in your face.
Human nature is what defines the way that people behave and think. In her story "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson describes the different ways people react to the probability of getting killed. In the town presented, people have a tradition called The Lottery in which a human sacrifice is made every year, and it is associated with good agriculture and nature; however, the ritual is so old there's no way of actually knowing why or how it started. They decide who the victim will be by a paper draw between all of the people in town and at the end whoever gets the slip with the black dot, is stoned to death. The unlucky winner is Tessie Hutchinson and other members of the town like Mr. Summer; who conducts it, and Old man Warner; who is a loyal follower of the ritual are involved.
Jackson’s “The Lottery” entails an appalling sacrificial ritual in a town of people who mindlessly obey this outdated event, despite that some towns have stopped this ritual. It draws parallels to how early civilizations used sacrifices to ensure the betterment of their group, or to eliminate sins. In some respects, it alludes to the Salem Witch Trials during the 1600’s in which Anne Hutchinson ostracized and “was banished to Rhode Island” (Chemeketa) for her then liberal ideals. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, she uses allegory, symbolism, and foreshadowing in order to convey the theme that groupthink and/or mob mentality can dangerously allow people to blindly follow tradition impulsively without questioning it ethically.
This creates curiosity for the reader and urges them to continue reading. Her reveal of the true nature of The Lottery comes as a shock because the reader is unsure of what is actually happening until the first stone hits Tessie’s head. The use of suspense during the story gives the reader time to think about how much The Lottery means to the towns people even though it costs them their lives. The reader are is taken through the entire ritual still unaware of the story’s purpose but once Tessie’s black dot is discovered the author intensifies the suspense and that reveals the ending. This leaves the audience shocked and confused.
As he arrived, he was carrying a black wooden box, and set it on a three-legged stool that was placed in the center of the square. Mr. Summers suggested every year to acquire a new box because the black box grew horrid every year, however, the suggestion was ignored. The people of the village were afraid to dismay the tradition that was signified by the black wooden box. As the lottery began, Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson arrived quickly forgetting that the lottery is taking place. There was a list of each head of the household along with each member of the family.
“The Lottery” symbolizes death In life, people who do not deserve to die are taken from Earth too soon. Many people say that his/her death was unfair. The anonymous quote, “Life is fair because it is unfair to everyone” summarizes the feelings of the characters in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” The character’s tradition is there to stay, especially because their population is increasing. There village is overwhelmed with this tradition and the seem to not like change, they are happy for the most part until someone gets chosen there stressed and on there toes.
The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who
Third, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing to develop horror in this short story. In the second paragraph of this short story the narrator talks about children going around to collect rocks and making large piles of them. The reader at first thinks this is an innocent child’s play, but the children are actually preparing the rocks to stone the chosen victim. One of the leaders of the lottery, Mr. Graves, his name represents death. Because you dig graves for dead bodies to bury them.
The purpose of violence in “The Lottery” is to make a connection to today’s society in which something bad can take place in places people would never think anything could happen. The town in which “The Lottery” is set in is a sweet country town. No one would think something so bad like stoning a person to death publicly, could happen. “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now… a stone hit her on the side of the head.” A similar event happened in which teachers died in Connecticut to a school shooter.
also it seemed like she was trying to avoid showing up to the lottery .Therefore it is obvious that she doesn’t even want to be there which hints that there is something dark behind the Lottery. Jackson’s use of foreshadowing in “The Lottery” contributed to the story by hinting that there is something much darker and eerier than we expect about this village and its tradition of the
Usually there’s a winner in a lottery, but not in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story intrigued me by it's suspenseful nature and it's chaotic events. In small town America, they come together once a year to perform an annual tradition. Mrs. Jackson demonstrates literary devices such as foreshadowing, mood, and conflict in “The Lottery”. Foreshadowing is used quite a few times in “The Lottery”.
Jackson gives an impression that the shabby, black box is a personal and constant reminder to the people so that they must remain faithful to the tradition of their forefathers and never ponder on the notion that those customs might be wrong or immoral. In addition, the villagers’ behavior towards the box embodies their assessment on the entire system of the lottery. They seem to be frightened by the lottery and the box, but they are even more petrified to alter or doubt one or the other. Pressures, traditions and longstanding beliefs may potentially guide that society to an extensive ignorance and sanctioned malevolence that is directly strengthened by
The Lottery deals with the theme of Traditions and Rituals. Everyone in the town blindly follows the annual tradition of the lottery. No matter how sickening it is, no one dares to question it because this tradition has been around for so long. Longer than the eldest person in the town, Old Man Warner. People are not only wary about stopping the lottery, but also small things like a new box for the lottery drawings.
The gathering and guarding of the pile of stones suggests that the children were preparing for the lottery’s conclusion, and even anticipate participating in it as if it is a game of dodgeball. The eventual outcome and demise of a community member at the end of the lottery event does not faze the youths demonstrating a numbness towards
Everyone usually has a family tradition that they do every year. Every year my family celebrates Christmas during Christmas we wake up and open gifts and go to my grandparents house for dinner and usually open more gifts. In my short story “The Lottery” their tradition is putting names into a box and if your name gets called and there is a black dot on your slip,you get rocks thrown at you until you die. In The Lottery Jackson uses the black box to symbolize death and if you're going to die.