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Sacrifice In The Lottery

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“The Lottery,” a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a woman who has been selected for sacrifice by a lottery drawing. Tessie Hutchinson, and the rest of her town, are unfeeling about how the annual sacrifice affects the selected. However, they carry on with their tradition year after year, with no intent to make changes to meet modern day morals and needs. “The Lottery” is about blindly following tradition, the awareness of how cruel a practice sacrificing is, and how one’s mindset can change when they are the chosen one. (1) When one blindly follows tradition, they become unmindful. In “The Lottery,” the citizens have practiced the ceremony for as long as anyone can remember. They see that sacrificing by stoning is the only way to handle …show more content…

Then, the members of the marked family draw, and the person that draws the marked slip is stoned to death. To many of the inhabitants, this means that they will sacrifice a member of the town in exchange for a better food ration. On the other hand, the person being stoned, and their family are thinking about each other, how they will survive without their family member, and the pain of being stoned. Being stoned might not sound terrible at first, but having boulders and rocks thrown at your head, chest, and the rest of your body until you bleed or fall to death is a horrible way to die. The town continues this practice because they have no desire to trigger change. (Conclusion) “The Lottery” is about how a town’s citizens are scared of upbringing change because they do not want to alter their custom. The townspeople do not realize that they must fight and change their tradition, or it will continue forever. The lottery may have been much more needed in the past rather than in present day, but the people continue to conduct it because they are fearful of an amendment to such a close part of their lives. Practicing traditional ceremonies is an essential part of life, but accepting change is imperative to ensure that development is

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On June 26 of 1948, Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, made its first appearance in an issue of The New Yorker. Jackson was surprised by the substantial amount of backlash she received in regards to her harrowing writing that manifests the rituals of human sacrifice. The story takes place in a small town on an ordinary summer morning. The villagers assemble at the town square for the annual lottery, where one of the villagers will be randomly chosen to sacrifice themselves to the gods of a fertility religion. The villagers believe that a human sacrifice must take place in June to ensure that a bountiful harvest was ahead of them.

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In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, the author uses a theme that says that people never stick up for one another until they are being harmed or punished by the same problem. In the book The Lottery the townsmen come together to have an annual stoning, which helps them believe that the sacrifice will bring a good year's harvest. This quote from the text lets us see why no one cared to stand up for her, ""It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. "

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“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.

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The world is currently affected by the foulest illness of all: conformity. Many people are nervous to stray away from tradition in fear of being an outcast, even if that means following customs like racism and sexism, which causes chaos among the country. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” displays this morbid reality when a town of villagers gathers to obey their annual tradition. Although this event appears at first to be pleasant and festive, it soon becomes clear that the prize is not something of value. The “winner”, it turns out, will be stoned to death.

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What if it came down to someone that was really close to your family. They were getting away with murder because no one would step up and say the town didn't have to stone someone every year. They just went on thinking it was

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The lottery is considered a tradition, and no one questions its validity or morality until the arrival of a stranger who challenges their beliefs. Similarly, the death penalty continues because of cultural and historical traditions, and many people accept it as a necessary part of the justice system without questioning its morality or effectiveness. In both cases, the atrocity is allowed to proceed because of deeply ingrained beliefs and the reluctance of people to question the status quo. However, as in the case of the stranger in "The Lottery," it takes individuals who are willing to challenge these beliefs and ask difficult questions to bring about change and end these social

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Although many who read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” believe it to be about a crazy town viciously slaughtering an innocent woman for the ritualized sacrifice to bring them a feastful harvest of corn, it very clearly demonstrates Jackson’s hope to educate readers of the horrors of society’s blind following using social conformity, tradition, and general acceptance. The story starts at around 10 o’clock a.m. on June 27, and children are stacking rocks. The whole town gathers around and picks one piece of paper per family, out of an old black box.

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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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The purpose of the lottery is to continue the old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order for a harvest. The scapegoat is chosen at random and then stoned to death by his/her companions. Although “The Lottery” reflects an event from the past, Jackson shows that many of the actions of the town resemble the tribulations that ensue in today’s society. To begin with, like the villagers in the story, our society also partakes in valuing tradition.

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Traditions have been sought after and passed on for generations; with no questions asked, whether humane or not, traditions are hard to break and diminish as they are often what a culture or community stands for. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, a story about the tradition of a small village, is painted in impeccable details of peace, and serenity on a warm summer day, as everyone follows the tradition they have known since a long time ago despite the true intentions and meaning of it forgotten. The Lottery taking place annually is like no other lottery, it paints the true picture of the horror that epitomizes the tradition that none of the villagers dare to question, despite it creating separation between gender and families and ruining

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Many people would die to win the lottery; in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you would do anything NOT to win this lottery. This annual lottery reveals the negative aspects of this town’s Tradition, Savagery, Barbarism, and cold-heartedness. In this paper I will show why this town blindly follows these customs, not because it’s a tradition but because of the accepting wickedness that can be shown. Why does the town follow this foolish tradition? Throughout “The Lottery” the narrator tells that the people do not remember how the lottery began, and that some of the older people believe the lottery has changed over the years, that now people just want to get it over with as fast as possible.

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Davy Hutchinson [is given] a few pebbles.” (Jackson, 7). The villagers will not break the ancient tradition even though they do not have the original paraphernalia nor do they know the reason for this

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“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts off with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers holds the lottery. Once everyone gathers, every family draws a slip of paper out of an old black box, and the family with the black mark on their paper gets picked. After that, each family member older than 3 years of age re-draws a slip of paper again and this time, the person with the black mark on their paper gets picked as the “lucky winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery, with her reward is being stoned to death.

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Notably, the people of Omelas do not agree with the method being used (252). On the other hand, the child still sits there without hearing even a kind word (253). Moreover, in Jackson’s “The Lottery” the sacrifice is the stoning of the person with a black dot on their piece of paper they are to draw from a bowl. The lottery is a “tradition” (255). The life of one to bring as Jackson puts it, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (257).

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At a time when basic religious beliefs and traditions were being questioned by academia, author Shirley Jackson penned a poignant attack against those who blindly accepted values and traditions in her short story, “The Lottery.” The Lottery is presented as an event that has always occurred throughout the region's history without any opposition. Nonchalantly, the entire village commits homicide at the finale. Finally, aspects of the traditional lottery evolved without notice or were forgotten by the villagers. Within “The Lottery,” author Shirley Jackson embeds the theme of blindly accepting traditions as illustrated by the actions of the villagers.

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