How Does Shirley Jackson Use Symbols In The Lottery

In the novel, The Lottery, Shirley Jackson creates a small village with an obscure tradition that is gruesome to the reader but normal for the town. The author uses objects and characters in the story to further the theme. The use of symbols in The Lottery helps the reader understand the story’s theme by using average items to represent the darkness hidden within the seemingly happy small town. In the beginning of the story the town’s children make “a great pile of stones in one corner the town square” (Jackson, 278) and play around with each other, which seems like a random game that children would play until the end of the story when it is revealed that the stones were to be used to kill the lottery recipient. The stones in the story symbolize the primitive nature of the lottery

The box signifies the broken and rearranged manner in which humans celebrate traditions in the modern day. Christmas, for example, was originally a pagan festival for the Roman Sol Invictus and was later associated with Jesus’ for the sun’s meaning of enlightenment, and over time other traditions from many cultures, like the decoration of the tree from Germany or the mistletoe from Norse Mythology, were added on to enlarge the pool of followers that participate in the tradition. The same goes for the town in The Lottery. The townspeople are reluctant to get rid of the box, as seen on page 279 where Jackson writes that, “no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box”, but the villagers forget about the box the rest of the year, just like people forget about holidays when they are not in season. The villagers ignore the box out of subconscious fear of what would happen if they were to be chosen but will not speak out in fear of becoming