Literary Techniques Used In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

In the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, Jackson emphasizes the idea of preserving a lottery tradition, and at the same time allowing for subtle changes to be made, that would ultimately affect specific ideals of the ritual. Jackson uses rocks, a black box, and slips of paper as forms of symbolism. The black box symbolizes both tradition and change as the box was made up of pieces from previous lottery boxes that were a part of the lottery ages ago- and of course more modern , non traditional pieces. The rocks symbolize punishment or death; the significance of the rocks were revealed by the end of the story, when Mrs. Hutchinson was struck by them by everyone in attendance at the town's annual lottery event. Then there are the

1), which is where the lotteries are held.The first to arrive at every lottery are the children whom prepare the rocks for the ultimate consequence at the end of the event. In fact, after watching one young man gather rocks in preparation, "the other boys soon followed his example; selecting the smoothest and roundest stones..eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raid of the other boys"(para.2). Clearly, the leader of the group of boys who built this rock fort understood the greater value it would have by the end of the "ceremony". That's why they chose to protect as it had been done multiple times before. These rocks must be kempt, so that whoever shall be chosen for punishment, there will be no need for any searching or inaccuracies of any sort. By the end of the short story, this concept is further supported, when Jackson writes "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box,they still remembered to use stones"(para.23). As already noted, these rocks are a part of a bigger cause;therefore, they must be

Now as it has been revealed already, the black box that Mr. Summers uses (the one in charge of the lottery) is not the original box that been used decades ago. Thus, this box still has its traditional significance because "the present box had been made with pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here"(para.4). Here, though the box that Mr. Summers possesses is not the exact same one that was used ages ago, there is still some historical and ritual value in the fact being that the box is composed of matter of the box that was used since the first townspeople practiced this ritual.With that being said, the box still accounts and is still considered a traditional