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Symbolism used in the lottery
Theme of human nature in the lottery
Theme of human nature in the lottery
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Symbolism used in the lottery
Theme of human nature in the lottery
Theme of human nature in the lottery
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Everybody's Fault, No one's Fault. “ The Lottery '' written by Shirely Jackson is a short story about a village where an annual lottery is drawn. The person to draw the ‘winning’ ticket faces a dark twist. Author Shirely uses devices such as diffused responsibility and compliance. “The Man in the Well '' is a short passage written by Ira Sher, It explores the theme of following the crowd by showing how compliance and diffused responsibility could influence these children to form an unspoken agreement to lease the man in the well.
Power of the Gods For generation, human society is constantly changing throughout history and many of those changes are the extreme religious beliefs that many people practices. Such as “sacrificial rituals”. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson had written a novel about a small town that does sacrificial ritual once every year because they believe it would help the crops grow well in the summer. The process of this ritual is done by a random selection from a lottery box by each members of household and if a person draws a paper with a black dot on it, that person will be stone to death by the town folks. During the Iron Age, sacrificial rituals is commonly used around the countries such as Mexico, Egypt, China, and numerous of others countries and small tribes because they believe that it would please a divine being that is known to be alive.
Have you ever been in a situation where you witnessed someone being hurt? Did you do anything to stop them? Most times, we are afraid to help someone else in order to not risk our own lives. Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” uses Tessie as a symbol to explore the idea that fear can lead to the collapse and corruption of a community. In "The Lottery" we are introduced to an unusual lottery in where one person gets unfortunately chosen and stoned to death.
Tessie Hutchinson is the only villager who protests against the Lottery. When the Hutchinson family draws the marked paper, Tessie exclaims: “It wasn’t fair!”. But her fight is not supported by her family and people around. Her voice is ignored even her husband asks her to be quiet. This refrain continues as she is selected and subsequently stoned to death, but people are always selfish.
Tessie complains about how the lottery is unfair for a large portion of the story. I don’t like Tessie Hutchinson because she whines too much. She was constantly complaining about how things aren’t fair. Tessie Hutchinson is one of those people who are all about things being fair. Tessie is very demanding because she wouldn’t not stop
“Why are violence and the sacred so intertwined? Why is death seen as necessary to renew life?” —Micheal Wood From the grotesque brutality of the Aztecs to the inhumane slaying by the celtics; ritualistic human sacrifice has been practiced throughout history. Various cultures use society sanctioned killings for reasons such as to appease a higher power, predicting the future and up holding superstition. Sacrifice is best exemplified in Shirley Jackson’s short essay, “The Lottery” in which each year a community stones a fellow citizen in attempts to assure healthy crops.
Since the lottery is randomized, everyone has an equal chance at being slaughtered even though most of them have done absolutely nothing to really deserve it. Tessie is a housewife that is well known in the community and her own friends and family still relentlessly stone her to death. At once all of her family has revealed their papers, and it leaves her paper to reveal the single black dot of death that everyone in the village is fearful of. Assuming that since she is “marked for death”, she deserves to die. They start acting, as though the person that she was once before no longer exists, and she is is not even a human being anymore once that is revealed.
Ayaan Khateeb Mrs. Wald L/A Period 1 2/24/23 Do you ever act without thinking? What effects could that have? Is it a quality choice to act without thinking? Don’t worry, almost everyone does. But occasionally, the outcomes can be worse than others.
Immanuel Kant famously said, "out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." This sentiment is echoed in Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," which exposes the dark side of human nature. Jackson's work reveals how even the most seemingly civilized people can commit acts of extreme cruelty and violence when motivated by tradition and fear, highlighting the inherent evil in human beings. The lottery in the story is a disturbing ritual that exposes the grotesque disfigurement of humanity's porcelain mask. The townspeople have normalized this twisted act to the point of treating it like a farmers market or other social event.
In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson shows social conformity with the lottery itself. Everyone in the town, including Tessie’s own family, throw rocks at her. People who appeared to be her friends only minutes before are telling her to be a good sport. We can also infer that the stoning is only accepted because the whole town is doing it, and if it was only one citizen throwing rocks at another until s/he died, it would be considered murder. This shows conformity
Differences between generations can be observed throughout the literary interpretations of society. Demonstrating some of the feelings that everyone has in how they are to act in their society, or be perceived. Major events in history that have brought us a succinct “silent generation” followed by the commonly known “baby boomer generation” that gave way to modern x and y generations that we know today. Each generation shaped both by its parent generation and the events that were occurring at the time of the birth of the respective generation. Causes of this change are primarily able to be summed up by war, debt, and evolving technology.
The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a small town that conducts an annual lottery. The entire town gathers to participate in the sacrificial stoning of the so-called winner. Jackson’s aim for this story was to show the general evil of human nature and the unnecessary violence in the world. Jackson uses the third person point of view and a lot of characters to help convey the purpose of the story by distancing the reader from the characters. This shocks the reader at the ending and allows them to view the story from an outside perspective and see the reality of the situation.
He believes that the lottery should not be changed. A villager hands little David, one of Tessie’s child, pebbles, and he too participates in the stoning of his mother. He believes that this is acceptable, and no one has ever told him otherwise. Giving kids the opportunity to help kill someone is seen immoral in today’s world. Stoning involves the whole community.
It wasn’t fair!’” (Jackson 5). And ultimately when it was Tessie who had ended up with the black dot on her paper, it was deemed unfair by her. Everyone takes the same chance by participating but once any of them are picked to be stoned to death they see the wrong in the ceremony. “‘It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, then they were upon her” (Jackson
Attending each 12-step meeting was interesting, yet frightening too. Surprised at how different the population was among each meeting. In the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings there were more of an older generation, where in the Narcotics Anonymous there were more of a younger generations. I noticed in the Narcotics Anonymous meeting there were a lot of people who were wearing ankle monitors from the justice center, but out of the three Alcoholics Anonymous (I know we only had to attend two AA meetings-long story on how/why I ended up attending three) meetings I attended there were only two people I recall seeing with ankle monitors compared to four or five to the one Narcotics Anonymous meeting.