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Symbolism In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

897 Words4 Pages

The lottery is a story about a small village that holds an annual lottery. Each year, the villagers gather in the town square and draw names from a box to determine who will be chosen as the "winner" of the lottery. The winner is then stoned to death by the other villagers. This ritual has been going on for generations, The lottery has been a part of the town's culture for so long that there’s even an old saying: "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." This phrase serves as a reminder of the importance of the lottery to the people in the town and their belief that it’ll bring them good fortune. Nobody questions it until one year when Tessie Hutchinson speaks out against it once she’s the one that’s chosen. The lottery serves as a symbol of …show more content…

even though it’s close to its last limb they refuse to replace it. They’re trying to hold on to it thinking that it holds pieces of the older box. The box has been passed down for generations, It's part of the original tradition. it’s filled with slips of paper that each family puts in, and when it comes time to draw for the lottery, they open the box and draw out a slip. Each piece of paper is blank except for one, which contains a black dot. The person who draws the blank paper with the black dot is declared the "winner". The slips of paper are known to be the lottery ticket, the original tickets were usually wooden instead of paper. There’s been so many twists and turns to the tradition. The black box is a reminder of the tradition and the values of the lottery that have been passed down from generation to generation. It is a reminder that no one can predict what will happen in life, and that they must be prepared for …show more content…

Every member of each family has to attend the lottery. The lottery shows how people can be so ready to kill someone, not caring about if that individual has done anything wrong or not. It points out the randomness of killing someone and how it can come out of nowhere, for example how Tessie was chosen and not even her family tried stopping it. The lottery showed how cruel humans can be and the whole town followed it, revealing something about their human

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634 Words | 3 Pages

The town gathers each June to pull papers to see who is the unlucky person to be selected is. Jackson details the townspeople preparing for the event, and well, the actual event. Although, why is the lottery even happening? Why do these people believe it is ordinary to just kill off one of their own in a type of Russian roulette? Old Man Warner, an older man almost in charge of the lottery, noted that there “used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy

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478 Words | 2 Pages

One piece of the lottery that kept the most tradition was the black box. The author writes “ the original paraphernalia for the lottery 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”. This box had been around for so long and represented years of tradition that no one wanted to get a new box.

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904 Words | 4 Pages

still believing that they didn’t give her husband enough time to pick a paper slip (5). Mrs. Graves says what the rest of the community is thinking, “ All of us took the same chance.” Showing that every citizen is equal in this situation (5). Furthermore, both the black dot on the paper slips and the black box used to hold the paper slips during the lottery both symbolize something grimmer. The dark colour represents the death one citizen must face, the box itself simulates a coffin, it is a dark box that holds the cruel fate for a poor soul.

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520 Words | 3 Pages

“The Lottery” Interpretive Essay “The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts of with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers, the official, holds the lottery. After that, every family draws out of an old black box, and a certain family gets picked. Out of the certain family, one person gets picked as the unlucky “winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery.

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1242 Words | 5 Pages

At 10 o’clock every villager stops what they’re doing to head to the square. When Mr. Summers arrives he has with him the black box. Mr. Martin and his oldest son help set it, he then stirs the papers, so the villagers don't think it's a rigged lottery. The box they’re using is the first box they’ve ever used to have the lottery. It might have been falling apart but the villagers got offended when speaking of replacing the box for a new one.

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1474 Words | 6 Pages

“The Lottery” is an realism/horror story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about some villagers of a small New England town who follow the tradition of making a lottery every year. When it comes, they like to celebrate it with the correct rules and the correct objects so they can feel more comfortable. Everyone need to take a slip of paper from a small black box, and the paper with a black dot in it means that the family is the winner, then they raffle again; Bill Hutchinson, who was the husband of the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson picked a paper with a black dot in it, that meant that Tessie was the winner of the lottery, then she starts complaining because the drawing was not conducted properly. At the end, the townspeople moved off to a cleared spot outside the town and they begin stoning her to death (Jackson).

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691 Words | 3 Pages

“The Lottery’s” opening lines read: “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. ”(Jackson 309). From this line, one can conclude that Jackson is trying to portray the village as a quaint and nice place where townsfolk gather, and no harm occurs. However, this strays far from the truth. As the story continues, the gathering abruptly changes and ultimately leads the townspeople to commit violence and murder.

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430 Words | 2 Pages

First, in the ”The Lottery” the black box represents a tradition that has been followed for longer than people can remember. Like the lottery as a whole, the black box has no functionality except during this day every June: "It had spent one year in Mr Graves's barn and another year underfoot in the post office and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there" (Jackson 6). The purpose of the box, like the lottery itself, has become

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501 Words | 3 Pages

The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who

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492 Words | 2 Pages

The Symbolism of The Lottery One big symbol that the short story is discreet about is the black box that is repeated throughout the short story symbolizes fear to adults which could affect even the most innocent. The black box appears to be the only paraphernalia that is still being used in the tradition of having a lottery. Mr. Summers is the one who is running the lottery at the time. Mr. Summers is seen as a nice man, however, when he is introduced, he is seen with the black box. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that uses the black box as a symbol to convey an underlying message that when the power of a tradition is given to a person, it could lead a crumbling society.

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152 Words | 1 Pages

In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the author has demonstrated each symbol and the meaning that holds behind them. The black box is culturally known as a dark and evil color. It represents the fate of the people in town, and the three-legged stool is used as a support for the black box to lay on top of the object. Stoning is ancient.

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467 Words | 2 Pages

In her story "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson implies the negative consequences of blindly following tradition through the acceptance, by the villagers, of the tradition of the lottery. Jackson suggests that the people of the village are afraid to give up the little tradition they have, even if it is not good. Every year after the lottery, the conductor of the lottery, Mr. Summers suggests that they should build a new box but, “No one [likes] to upset even as much tradition as [is] represented by the box.” (Jackson, 1). The black box symbolizes ritual and tradition.

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960 Words | 4 Pages

Religion is a major piece of societal function in the modern era. Lots of societal factors can be determined by one’s religion. So, it makes sense that religion and religious institutions are a continual hot topic for sociologists, and that there is an undying debate as to the meaning and purpose of religion, mainly due in part to the three conflicting views of sociology: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Functionalism, according to Understanding Social Problems, 5th Edition, Functionalism states that “society is a system of interconnected parts that work together in harmony to maintain a state of balance and social equilibrium for the whole”. In other words, it is a sociological viewpoint that suggests that society functions in a cooperative manner meant to build and uphold itself, the key focus being how society attempts to preserve itself and evolve: group survival.

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926 Words | 4 Pages

This story still remains relevant in comparison to today. Simple towns people who speak to each other on a daily basis and joke around with each other all of the sudden turn around and kill one of their one. This story symbolized the change of heart within people when events go on. With various symbols, Shirley Jackson created the short story, The Lottery, to show society and what it has been and what it could be. One might even say that Jackson wanted to keep it in the mind of a ‘modern’ society that such things could happen again.

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809 Words | 4 Pages

The black box that is old and “[grows] shabbier each year,” represents the old traditions that are held with high esteem (540). The box has been repaired multiple times. There are talks about creating a brand new black box but those always fade away being as everyone wants to stick with the old box. The people do not want to break tradition. Everyone keeps “their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool” where the box sits (540).

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