Everyone has traditions no matter where they’re from you might not even think some of the holidays people celebrate are traditions, for example Christmas, Independence day, even your birthday we tend to view traditions as positive but not every tradition is and short story The Lottery shows a perfect example of harmful traditions. To Start off the theme of The lottery is that Tradition isn't always a good thing and the way the author portrays this is by using Foreshadowing. The use of Foreshadowing is used when “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones'' (Jackson 1).This is a prime example of foreshadowing because we learn further in
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”.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is one of the most well-written and popular short stories because it has a strong sense of foreshadowing, setting and theme. The first element that contributes greatly to the making of a good short story is foreshadowing. For instance, in the beginning of “The Lottery”, children were putting stones in their pockets, foreshadowing the stoning ceremony. The names in “The Lottery” also implies what is about to happen. With names such as Graves and Delacroix, it signals graveyards and death, hinting at the sacrificial killing of Tessie.
How does suspense, imagery, and foreshadowing play roles in stories. Roald Dahl, Richard Connell, and, Shirley Jackson all believe these elements play a very important role in stories. In Connell’s story General Zaroff likes to hunt a more smart game, humans. In The Landlady, Dahl a very old lady lures in young men to her boarding house to do sick deeds. In Jackson’s story The Lottery, the lottery is nothing but a horror show.
In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” foreshadowing is used to greatly enhance the story. I believe that foreshadowing adds mystery and wonder to the experience of the story, making it much more interesting to the reader. Firstly, foreshadowing allows for a lot of added suspense and meaning. If foreshadowing were not present, then a lot of major details like the villagers being anxious or the collecting of rocks would not improve upon the story, thus becoming worthless, since they all lead to create the story's ending.
Have you ever seen traditions or rituals that have been going on for a long time and realize they are bad for people? In the story, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, it is a fictional story about a boy named Jonas who finds something about his community that nobody else knows. In the short story, “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, it is a dramatic story about a game that the whole community participates in but there is a twist about it that is very terrifying. In the stories, Lowry and Jackson both use the plot of the story to show that not all traditions should continue.
Foreshadowing In The Lottery They call it the lottery, but this is not just an ordinary lottery. The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, takes place in the 1950’s. The townspeople have a tradition which they call “The Lottery” which is a sacrificial stoning. Within the story Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to foreshadow and emphasize the imminent death of Tessie Hutchinson and the ironic ending of the story.
Traditions are something most families have. In the dystopian novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas lives in a community where everything is routine, even some rituals that aren’t right. In the short story, “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, a village participates in an awful event they call The Lottery. Both stories show the theme of how blindly following traditions isn’t always right. In the dystopian novel titled The Giver by Lois Lowry, the author conveys the theme of how following customs isn’t the best thing to do at times.
Andrew McManus Mrs. Erlbaum Ela January 17, 2023, Blind Tradition The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said “tradition will accustom people to any atrocity.” In Shirley Jackson's “ The Lottery” a small village blindly follows a crazy tradition that accustoms people to terrible and unreliable ways. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a story about a terrible tradition when people of a small village follow a blind tradition that they don’t know anything about. The people of this small farming village have a lottery every year and they sacrifice one person to get stoned every year in a lottery drawing.
In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing when the children are collecting stones from the river and putting them into piles. It hints that something bad is going to happen because it is unusual for boys to be grabbing stones and randomly put them into a pile. For example, while the towns people were getting ready for the lottery the narrator states, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example,selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix, eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.” (Jackson). This quotation shows that the boys in the village are finding the smoothest and roundest stones and putting them into a big pile.
Would you follow something without thought? In the novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, the community follows particular rules with no question. In the short story, “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, the villagers kill a person each year without thinking. Therefore, Jackson and Lowry develop the message of people following others blindly without questioning.
Winning the lottery would make most happy but in Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story The Lottery winning it means you have something different in store than money. This story first appeared in The New Yorker in 1948 and left many people distressed. The Lottery starts with a normal setting in a nice neighborhood and it slowly gains suspense as it goes on to reveal a disturbing ending. Jackson developed these literary devices to help make this story truly unique such as conflict, setting, and characterization to leave the reader in shock. One way the author presents characterization is through dialogue.
Jackson uses imagery and irony, as well as symbolism to make us aware of the custom, and violence and tradition as the themes of this short story. One literary device which is used by Jackson in this story is imagery. Imagery is defined as concepts or expressions that appeal to the reader’s feelings. Jackson uses vivid imagery to illustrate the start of her story. With this in mind, irony, a technique that involves surprising contradictions or contrasts, takes place in the story for the most part showing us that this story in fact has twists and turns that might be outrageous to some of the people from this era.
“The Lottery” is an realism/horror story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about some villagers of a small New England town who follow the tradition of making a lottery every year. When it comes, they like to celebrate it with the correct rules and the correct objects so they can feel more comfortable. Everyone need to take a slip of paper from a small black box, and the paper with a black dot in it means that the family is the winner, then they raffle again; Bill Hutchinson, who was the husband of the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson picked a paper with a black dot in it, that meant that Tessie was the winner of the lottery, then she starts complaining because the drawing was not conducted properly. At the end, the townspeople moved off to a cleared spot outside the town and they begin stoning her to death (Jackson).
It’s a beautiful summer day and everything seems perfect, but as the reader keeps reading they come to realize that this story is not as simple and straight forward as the title suggest, rather it is a horrifying and dark tale. Shirley Jackson is forwarding the theme on tragic it can be to blindly follow traditions by using foreshowing, symbolism, and dialog. The first literary device Shirley Jackson uses to forward the theme blindly following traditions, is foreshowing. The first example I am going to us I talked about in my introduction.
