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Death In The Short Story 'The Lottery'

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Tradition is important, but does it justify death? In the short story “The Lottery”, this topic is explored. When a small village gathers for their annual lottery, readers assume that this is like any other lottery. As the story unravels readers come to realize that this lottery is a sacrificial ceremony where a member of the village is chosen to be pelted by stones to death to ensure a good harvest. Tradition can be dangerous, this is explored through the setting, foreshadowing and the theme in this short story. The conflict between a person and society is explored by the setting of “The Lottery”. “The Lottery” takes place in a small village. Small towns, are usually isolated and have traditions and social norms that even if dangerous, …show more content…

Early in the story, the author wrote: “their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.” This inquires why they chose not to laugh indicating it may be a somber occasion. There is also mention of tuneless chants and ritualistic salutes. Lotteries are usually for money and money symbolized greed. This questions why there would be ritualistic chants and salutes as a lottery if lotteries provide greed when most times religion tells its followers not to be rapacious. Lastly evidence of foreshadowing is shown when Old Man Warner says “Lottery in June Corn be heavy soon”, this questions how the lottery is connected to crops. Foreshadowing gives insight as to why tradition can be dangerous because the foreshadowing indicates the use of a human sacrifice that occurs at the end of the story. Lastly,the theme itself,tradition can be dangerous is the main indicator as to why tradition can be dangerous. Tradition causes one person per year to be killed in the village. Death shouldn’t be associated with tradition, yet because tradition is archaic, people believe that it's okay to partake in it. Even when Tessie Hutchinson screamed ‘it isn’t fair, it isn’t right”, people still threw stones at her. A tradition within a society can be dangerous because society believes that because something is old that it is right. Therefore the theme is tradition can be dangerous explains how dangerous customs can

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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”.

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Throughout time, society has had its ups and downs but in the short story “The Lottery” people’s lives are taken to the next level by challenging their luck of survival. Today winning the lottery is rewarding and a positive feeling, but in the short story it’s nothing but a dangerous tradition that will end someone’s life. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson creates a story filled with foreshadowing, irony and a ritualized tradition that masks evil which ultimately demonstrates the central idea that people should not blindly follow tradition. For starters, The short story foreshadows many events to come and makes people’s lives more stressful and fearful.

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The Danger of Tradition Traditionally many ancient societies would kill their people to sacrifice to God in order to obtain rain or a good harvest. These mindlessly, followed traditions were never critically thought about and therefore citizens died year after year. A similar tragedy occurs in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story features a civilization much like our own but with one small difference, the town’s people hold a lottery every year and the town stones who ever loses to death.

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“The Lottery” Interpretive Essay “The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts of with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers, the official, holds the lottery. After that, every family draws out of an old black box, and a certain family gets picked. Out of the certain family, one person gets picked as the unlucky “winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery.

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The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a small town that conducts an annual lottery. The entire town gathers to participate in the sacrificial stoning of the so-called winner. Jackson’s aim for this story was to show the general evil of human nature and the unnecessary violence in the world. Jackson uses the third person point of view and a lot of characters to help convey the purpose of the story by distancing the reader from the characters. This shocks the reader at the ending and allows them to view the story from an outside perspective and see the reality of the situation.

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A lottery is usually an occasion for celebration but this one is a ritual that involves stoning a person to death based on the lottery’s results. Old Man Warner’s explanation offers insight into why utilitarianism and superstition blend together : "Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." ( para. 33 ) . It seems that the villagers believed that in order to have a good harvest of corn for the village, they would have to sacrifice one person in the guise of a lottery. They assumed that trouble would follow if they didn’t go through with the lottery and they might even find themselves living in caves again like the ancient men.

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The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story of horror and realism. On June 27th on a late summer morning, the villagers of a small New England village gatherd together in the town square to conduct their annual lottery. There is a black box on a stool and in the box there is pieces of paper in the box. Each person from a family get one paper from the black box even the children get a piece of paper and every stayed quiet and nervouse. Then Bill Hutchinson looked at the paper and notice that he got the black dot.

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Throughout centuries, traditions and rituals have had the ability to control one’s behavior. In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, she tells the reader of a small village. On the surface, this community may seem relatively normal. However, despite the picturesque appeal, this falsely serene village has a distinct deceitful flaw. On June 27th, every year, a lottery takes place.

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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

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Many people would die to win the lottery; in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you would do anything NOT to win this lottery. This annual lottery reveals the negative aspects of this town’s Tradition, Savagery, Barbarism, and cold-heartedness. In this paper I will show why this town blindly follows these customs, not because it’s a tradition but because of the accepting wickedness that can be shown. Why does the town follow this foolish tradition? Throughout “The Lottery” the narrator tells that the people do not remember how the lottery began, and that some of the older people believe the lottery has changed over the years, that now people just want to get it over with as fast as possible.

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At a time when basic religious beliefs and traditions were being questioned by academia, author Shirley Jackson penned a poignant attack against those who blindly accepted values and traditions in her short story, “The Lottery.” The Lottery is presented as an event that has always occurred throughout the region's history without any opposition. Nonchalantly, the entire village commits homicide at the finale. Finally, aspects of the traditional lottery evolved without notice or were forgotten by the villagers. Within “The Lottery,” author Shirley Jackson embeds the theme of blindly accepting traditions as illustrated by the actions of the villagers.

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