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The short story that is in review is Shirley Jackson’s, The Lottery. This book was released in June 1948. Soon after its release many people have been said to write letters to Jackson on how offended they were after reading it. This is a very controversial short story in which some of its key literary techniques are going to be evaluated.
In Shirley Jackson's short story “The Lottery” there is a lot of foreshadowing shown throughout the story. Based off of the title and the first paragraph we can figure out that the story is of course about a lottery for something. The subject of this lottery remains unknown for a great portion of the story, however. Shortly after this first paragraph, the second paragraph shows some boys playing around the town gathering and piling up stones. “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones and the other boys soon followed his example…
The Lottery In the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, the husbands were the first one to draw a slip from the black box, used for the ritual, in alphabetical order. As soon as the head of the families got their slip of paper, they can open it. Unfortunately, Bill Hutchinson pulled out the slip that tells everyone his household was chosen again to join the ritual. Mr. Hutchinson’s wife accused Mr. Summers, the ritual conductor or host, for not giving his husband enough time while it was his turn to take a random slip from the box.
Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” uses specific word choice to convey a suspenseful tone. One of her specific word choices Jackson chose is ¨nervously¨ to interpret how the lottery has affected everybody in the community, both emotionally and physically. An example of this would be the the interaction between Adams and Mr.Summers; Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, “Adams.” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi Steve,” Mr. Summers said, and Adams said “Hi Joe.”
How do authors demonstrate their purpose through their writing? In three short stories different authors use literary devices to make their readers question tradition. The first story named “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a tradition where a village throw stones at a person every year. Another story “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury is about people being inside their homes at night watching television, except one man who will rather walk outside. Kurt Vonnegut has a story called “2BRO2B” in which he discusses how people are in favor of a perfect world.
“The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, is a textbook example of a suspenseful, tense short story. The author of “The Lottery” creates a feeling of suspense and dread through the use of foreshadowing and withholding the true meaning of the lottery from the reader. The ending of the story is suggested at the very beginning, with the author describing the children of the town preparing for the massacre that will come. The author writes, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones" (Jackson 1).
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is about a small town of people who gathered in town square just as they do every year on June 27th. All the men and women are talking with one another while the kids begin collecting rocks into a large pile. Then, the Lottery begins which is basically a game of chance. Slips of paper are placed in a box,are mixed randomly and one of the slips has a black dot. Whoever gets the black dot will then win.
Shirley Jackson a very popular author well known for her short story called “The lottery” which always leaves the reader thinking. “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948 which is just weeks after it was written. Some other pieces written by Jackson are “The Haunting of Hill House”, “We have always lived in the castle” as well as “Life among the savages”. Jackson tends to write about horror and mystery and has many other pieces with supernatural themes. Many pieces written by Jackson have a small-town setting that end with horror.
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.
Jackson uses imagery and irony, as well as symbolism to make us aware of the custom, and violence and tradition as the themes of this short story. One literary device which is used by Jackson in this story is imagery. Imagery is defined as concepts or expressions that appeal to the reader’s feelings. Jackson uses vivid imagery to illustrate the start of her story. With this in mind, irony, a technique that involves surprising contradictions or contrasts, takes place in the story for the most part showing us that this story in fact has twists and turns that might be outrageous to some of the people from this era.
1). In conclusion, Shirley Jackson uses characterization, symbolism and themes to make the story acceptable to all readers. The characterization helps Shirley to recognize each part of the story such as the protagonist, the antagonist, the extras, etc. Also she uses symbolism to give a realistic point of view to the story with objects, places and some distinctive characters.
It’s a beautiful summer day and everything seems perfect, but as the reader keeps reading they come to realize that this story is not as simple and straight forward as the title suggest, rather it is a horrifying and dark tale. Shirley Jackson is forwarding the theme on tragic it can be to blindly follow traditions by using foreshowing, symbolism, and dialog. The first literary device Shirley Jackson uses to forward the theme blindly following traditions, is foreshowing. The first example I am going to us I talked about in my introduction.
In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing when the children are collecting stones from the river and putting them into piles. It hints that something bad is going to happen because it is unusual for boys to be grabbing stones and randomly put them into a pile. For example, while the towns people were getting ready for the lottery the narrator states, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example,selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix, eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.” (Jackson). This quotation shows that the boys in the village are finding the smoothest and roundest stones and putting them into a big pile.
“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.
Imagery, syntax, and irony are all used to create this horrific story. Jackson vividly describes the day in which this story takes place giving it a specific date, and describing it as a nice and full-summer day where “the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (539). Imagery helps to set a positive mood, and suspend reality to draw the reader into the story. The syntax evolves over the course of the story as the tone of the story changes. The story starts off with longer descriptive