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Literary Devices Used In The Lottery

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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. An example of this is in paragraph thirty-two “Used to be a saying about the ‘lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon.’ First thing you
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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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“The Lottery” When most people think of the Lottery they think of a one in a lifetime chance of winning some big-time cash. When you hear about the Lottery you automatically think of someone winning money or the other gambling games such as the Easy 5, Pick 3, and Pick 4. Could you image the Lottery being something else? In “The Lottery”, the author Shirley Jackson states, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. The author uses many things to make this story interesting, she uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and suspense throughout the story to keep the reader’s attention.

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It describes the lottery in detail, from the history of the black shabby box where the paper, which were once, chips of wood. While the story names several characters, it does not go into any details about them. It simply references their attitudes about the occasion. Many were anxious and ready to go, “Well, Now.” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work…” (PG).

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520 Words | 3 Pages

“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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2065 Words | 9 Pages

Stories have always been something that we, as humans, enjoy to hear and read. This is shown throughout history and continues to remain true today. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” she takes her readers through a whirlwind of a story, starting it out one way and ending it with something unexpected. She does a great job of writing, by implementing in foreshadowing, imagery, and the theme of tradition. When someone thinks of a lottery, it usually means that someone is going to win something, such as money.

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1383 Words | 6 Pages

Winning the lottery is such a happy moment in one’s life; it’s a feeling of excitement that on certain amount of money depending on the lottery they won. A lottery is a gambling game or process of raising money, for some public charitable ambition, in which a large number of tickets are sold and a drawings are held for certain prizes. In the story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, the exact opposite of excitement happened, it was more of sadness, they had the system of a traditional black box and one memory of every family was allowed to pick a lottery paper up. The narrative clues are the setting and specific details, the characters play a major role, foreshadowing, and suspense rising towards the end, the buildup of the outcome at the end

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539 Words | 3 Pages

Hutchinson screamed and then they were upon her. " This is an exert from Shirley Jackson 's short story "The Lottery. " This fragment is from the ending of the story, and already it adds suspense and a tinge of foreshadowing to the story. The other two reasons that make it a good story is the ending itself and the entirety of this mysterious lottery. This story is the best because of the entire mystery of it that makes you read until the very end.

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The short story “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson. This story takes place in a small village where everybody knows each other. In this story all the villagers gather around town for their annual lottery. Everyone in the village is compelled to follow this tradition even if the outcome ends up with someone dying. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses conflict, theme, and irony to develop this suspenseful short story.

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480 Words | 2 Pages

“The lottery” (1948) Analysis The short story, “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson takes place in a small village. Was conducted the lottery story in 1948. In this story, the lottery is a yearly tradition that takes place in a small American Town.

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1009 Words | 5 Pages

“The Lottery" is a verdict of depraved tradition of a community. The story surrounds a town where the lottery is drawn every year as a sacrifice ritual one 's life for a good fertile crop. The lottery rose up public opinions when it first published in 1948. It is a piece of Shirley Jackson in which she wrote about inhumanity and violence among human based on her real experience when she moved to a small town and was rejected by its people. Shirley Jackson always believed in sinful spirit within each individual self as her writing style portrayed the vicious side of her and people 's souls, “The dark current of awareness of evil that runs through her life and work seems too strong to have as its sole root the observance of suburban hypocrisy” (Judy Oppenhaimer).

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1194 Words | 5 Pages

Symbolism in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," a seemingly idyllic small town participates in an annual ritual that turns out to be anything but benign. While the townspeople gather for the lottery with excitement and anticipation, the story's ominous undertones suggest that something terrible is about to happen. Through its use of symbolism, "The Lottery" reveals the dangers of blindly following tradition and the ways in which violence can become normalized in society. This essay will explore three key symbols in the story—the black box, the stones, and the lottery itself—and analyze how they contribute to our understanding of the story's broader themes. By examining the role of these symbols in "The Lottery,"

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596 Words | 3 Pages

Ever been faced with a random act of persecution? Alternatively, saw the positive aspect in a situation that seemed impossible to discover happiness? Maybe you needed a person to connect with to find a way to vent your feelings. People can do this through literature, and in the story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, you find many indirect connections to your daily life through the literary devices used throughout the entire story. We are shown a place out in a rural area that seems all too peaceful, the lottery happens once a year on the day of summer solstice, but is never described in terms of a prize, we come to later find out that the “prize” is sacrificing a town member for the sake of a good harvest.

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1252 Words | 6 Pages

Literary Elements used in The Lottery By definition the word lottery means a process or thing whose success or outcome is measured by chance (“lottery”). To most people winning the lottery would conjure up excitement and overall good feelings. However, in the short story The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson, the lottery has a twisted and horrific meaning.

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1033 Words | 5 Pages

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize.

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809 Words | 4 Pages

The short story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson is full of literary elements. The old and innocent, small town atmosphere creates the perfect stage for this ironic tale. Several literary elements are evident throughout the composition but three specific elements stand out the most. Jackson’s unique ability to use tone and style, symbolism, and theme are what makes this story so fascinating. Tone and style are critical literary elements in “The Lottery.”

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