Cultural And Social Criticism In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The short story, The Lottery appeared on the June 26, 1948 edition of The New Yorker. Although the subscribers noticed nothing different about this edition of The New Yorker, it contained a story that would arouse divergent feelings among the readers and the public in equal measure. In fact, this story continues to elicit these feeling even in the 21st century, resulting in heated debates whenever the story comes up. It remains as controversial a story as it was more than half a century ago. The initial reaction after the initial publishing of the story was widespread outcry, which made Shirley Jackson, the author, a literary villain.

The Lottery is a short story about small town in New England made of about 300 citizens who are looking forward

This strategy twists the story and enhances feelings in the reader that the ritualistic acts in the story could be happening anyplace, even in the reader’s neighborhood or community. The story builds on the observation that people tend to rush into and accept practices that their community considers necessary and appropriate. The story depicts a community made of individuals who do not think well on their own before acting but prefer animal-like behaviors when in a group. Such tendencies and behaviors, practices, and rituals are observable in quite many societies in modern times. Hence, Shirley’s short story has immense cultural and social correlation and commentary, especially on subjects such as peer pressure and peoples’ cultures. It gives warning, albeit literarily, against actions such as murder, drinking or

These traditions seem like they have always been practiced by the people. Like ‘The Lottery,’ the stoning and beheading traditions in Saudi Arabia do not appear to be based on any historical or logical grounds. The rituals just exist and do not allow traditions to be questioned. It only contains pleas to the people without any reasonable explanations. Besides Saudi Arabia, stoning is also a form of legal punishment for adultery in countries such as Mauritania, a majority of Nigeria's states, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Nonetheless, it is not practiced in some of these nations including Mauritania and