“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson. It was about how they have a tradition of holding a lottery every year on June 27. The black box would hold all the papers with the names of all the families in the village. Out of all papers they only had one with a black dot. The person that got the paper with the black dot would get stoned to death. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson uses irony, symbolism, and tone to develop the plot of the story.
The word irony is use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning (Irony 1). Dramatic irony is when a character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better (Research 2). It occurs when Tessie objects
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It occurs when Tessie gets the paper because instead of winning something Tessie gets killed. Since the story's title is “The Lottery” the readers think she going to win something because that's what happens at lottery, but she didn't she ended up getting killed. The word symbolism is a system of symbols or representations (Merriam 1). The “black box” represents evil or death, suggested by the color of the box. They had been using that box since they started with “the lottery's” it was a tradition every time they finished with a lottery they were going to make a new box, but they never did. The black box faded and stained in some places.
The black dot represents “death” when they get the black dot it means they won the lottery. “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it…” “All right, folks.” Mr. Summers said. “Let's finish quickly.” (Jackson 7) Tessie got the black dot which meant she had won the lottery so she knew she was going to get killed. Once you got the black dot you would get stoned to