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Shirley Jackson Diction

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Many people go through their lives celebrating traditions year after year because it is what they were trained to do by others; during Christmas they kiss underneath mistletoe, during Thanksgiving they carve turkey’s, and come Halloween they adorn costumes as they beg for candy throughout their neighborhoods. While these traditional rituals, on the surface, appear to be harmless enjoyment, there are secrets hidden behind each of them, buried through years of alterations, omissions, and additions which can prove harmful to one’s soul and are therefore worthy of investigation. Similarly, Shirley Jackson brilliantly writes a terrifying short story, offering an awakening to her audience as she takes them into a ghastly village, hidden behind a euphoric façade, where ignorance is not always bliss. Written and appearing in the New Yorker in 1948, the story represents the average person who is programed to stroll through traditions, blindly adhering to rituals, of which carry no real meaning, beyond habit, to the characters. Brilliantly authored, as Jackson meticulously chooses to use informal concrete diction as she creates a setting which represents an everyday Early American town, engaging her readers into the characters ordinarily free mannered conversations through the unshifting and impartial tone of an objective third-person point-of-view narrator, and by using syntax to perfectly progress the story which creates shifts in mood ranging from serenity to disbelief, the eerie tale draws readers in with an exceptional sense of suspense. …show more content…

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the literary elements of foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony reveal the author’s perspective on the theme of the dangers of blindly following traditions without inquiring about their

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Anyone familiar with the word ‘lottery’ would expect a game of chance that results in a winner of either a prize of currency or material wealth. Jackson uses this well known assumption to her advantage as she laces the title with irony. Little does the reader

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Throughout time, society has had its ups and downs but in the short story “The Lottery” people’s lives are taken to the next level by challenging their luck of survival. Today winning the lottery is rewarding and a positive feeling, but in the short story it’s nothing but a dangerous tradition that will end someone’s life. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson creates a story filled with foreshadowing, irony and a ritualized tradition that masks evil which ultimately demonstrates the central idea that people should not blindly follow tradition. For starters, The short story foreshadows many events to come and makes people’s lives more stressful and fearful.

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Through Shirley Jackson’s utilization of irony, The Lottery portrays how following traditions naively can be destructive towards communities. To begin, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery elucidates irony to create an emphasis on how holding on to loyalty to traditions at the expense of morals can be dangerous to everyone. This author first implements this when the setting is introduced as “clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day”(363), but ironically the story ends with the death of Tessie Hutchinson. This use of verbal irony emphasizes the normalization of the gruesome rituals practiced and how unaffected the town is. Additionally, in the beginning of the story, children stuff their pockets with stones and begin creating piles

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Equally important, Jackson purposefully inserts incongruities within “The Lottery,” via means of irony, allowing the authors audience many opportunities to examine the true meaning of her words as the story’s events unfold. As one reflects on the title of Jackson’s story, a true sense of irony is revealed as the general population thinks of a lottery as something phenomenal and appealing, as opposed to the lottery in the author’s story which is atrocious and dreadful. Jackson describes a utopian village as she employs imagery to write the story’s setting of a “clear and sunny [day], with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green,” which ironically turns out a dystopia (250).

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One of the most disastrous and skillful aspects of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is that it frequently upsets the readers assumptions about what should happen next or even at all. At first glance, the reader is given a story title that conjures, quite naturally, a sense of faith—the assumption that someone is going to be awarded something. The first few paragraphs further confirm the sense of faith; it is a gorgeous summer day, the grass is a deep green, the flowers are colorful and blooming, kids out of school are playing…but then we start to see that something is not right in this land of excellence, plenty, and hope. We are then told by the narrator of “The Lottery” that the official of the lottery is performing a “civic” duty, which we

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The Lottery by Shirley Jackson explores the dangers of clinging to tradition and the its detrimental affects on the community it encompasses. Shirley Jackson uses suspense, foreshadowing and imagery to a make the reader aware of the dangers of clinging to forgotten and age old traditions. She continuously reminds us of how the towns people are blindly accepting of The Lottery and that they have allowed ritual murder to become part of their town celebrations. Murder isn’t something we should rejoice, about Shirley Jackson tries to express this to her the reader using a major plot twist, shocking us into understanding her purpose.

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Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” is a chilling examination of the most alarming aspects of human society, where seemingly innocent traditions disguise violent and unjust nuances. “The Lottery,” goes beyond its seemingly rural small-town setting to reveal important truths about the danger of conformity and random violence, the cruelty of injustice, and its similarities to the mechanisms of scapegoating and brutality witnessed during the Holocaust and the Cold War. Analyzing Jackson’s story’s many levels of symbolism reveals that it is both a precise critique of societal practices and a compelling account of the threat of corrupt authority. “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, notably portrays the cunning nature of injustices perpetrated by

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World War II was a time of blind conformity with the Germans. Knowing this, World War II was a great inspiration for Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” In “The Lottery”, the theme of blind adherence to a tradition being a bad idea is enhanced by the symbolism of the names, objects, and numbers. The symbolism of the characters enhances the theme of blind adherence.

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"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson begins innocently enough with a village preparing for an annual event, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that the seemingly harmless tradition is anything but, forcing readers to confront the dangers of blindly following tradition. Jackson employs rhetorical techniques that highlight the importance of avoiding conformity, as it will lead to dire consequences. Shirley Jackson's story is a powerful example of the use of symbolism, vivid imagery, and irony to illuminate the danger and violence of blindly following traditions, as the seemingly innocent annual lottery in a small town ultimately reveals the brutal consequences of conformity and the human capacity for violence. Throughout the story Jackson

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In Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery”, the theme is that people will follow a tradition for no reason whatsoever sometimes. I will explain why I think this is the theme in my story through 3 paragraphs. I will talk about the key details that the author (Shirley Jackson) gives throughout the story. I will then explain why all the key details connect to theme that I stated in the text. In the last paragraph I will combine my thinking into one paragraph about the beginning middle and end of the book.

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In Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Lottery, Jackson begins the story off in a sunny village, where tradition plays a significant role in keeping the village peaceful. To take part in their yearly tradition, the eager villagers gather together, waiting for the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black box. The

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In the short story, The Lottery, Shirley Jackson demonstrates her superb writing skills by implementing the themes of mindlessly following the herd and not questioning the unknown into a piece about a town devoted to a sacrificial tradition. She cleverly uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and conflict as literary devices to tie the pieces together and relate it to the real world. Many items are presented throughout the timeline of the story that the readers may have not picked up. For example,“The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.”

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584 Words | 3 Pages

The Lottery is one of Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece. She was born in California, graduated from Syracuse University in New York and was successful in writing novels, short stories, children’s fiction and biographies. In this short story, Jackson showed uncommon and absurd events in common settings that when it was published, many of the readers asked her questions as to how the conclusion was interpreted. In this analysis, Formalistic approach is the approach used.

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The Lottery Thesis Statement: In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” customs and traditions normalize the unspeakable acts. Unspeakable acts in a society are normalized by certain customs and traditions. The backbone of every culture and civilization is traditions that exist in a society. Tradition keeps society’s beliefs, social activities, and philosophies alive so that they are passed from one generation to another.

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Shirley Jackson’s “The lottery” is a story based on tradition. When hearing the word tradition, most people think of team rituals before games, or something families do together annually. However, Jackson is obviously not like most people. She builds up a fair amount of tension around this ritual that is taking place to make readers wonder what is going on. She uses many different techniques to show that sometimes, traditions are not always meant to go on forever.

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