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The Hidden Meaning Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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Upon reading this week's reading choice, "The Lottery", written by Shirley Jackson. I found this choice very entertaining. I instantly noticed that this short story's point of view was in third person. It takes place in a Rural Village in the Summer in or around 1948. This particular time period is the end of the Holocaust and of World War II, which took place in 1945. The author in my opinion, built this story around the events of that time period. This story was very suspenseful and at times raised one question, why does the lottery take place? It has many symbolic meanings such as the title and the lottery box itself. The title is very offsetting, as you read, the villagers seem very complacent with this ritual almost excited, but as you read further you will soon realize its …show more content…

The author takes a great deal of time to paint a vivid picture of the intricate details of the box. So the reader understands the is significance this box. It would seem that every detail leading to the stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson surrounds the "black box". Seeing that the names for the stoning come from the "black box". The villagers take great pride in keeping the ritual of the lottery in tact, one of the oldest citizens of the village states, that the lottery has went on for seventy-seven years and expressed disgust about other villages trying to change the tradition and stop the lottery. The author is depicting that its inevitable to stop the process of the lottery and it must go on. But when Mrs. Hutchinson's is the chosen person, a controversy starts because the villagers know what they have to do and her behavior is not acceptable. The plot of this story, is very familiar to me, it reminds me of a more recent story called "The Hunger Games". My reason for this is how the villagers have to gather for the lottery, which leads to a

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At the beginning of the story, these young boys were piling stones together at one corner of the square while they stuffed a few stones into their pockets. This foreshadows that maybe these stones were going to be used for something. The black box that was used for the lottery seemed to be an important object in the story. The box was used to pick which family is chosen for this ritual. Since black symbolizes for death and evil, that box chooses the person that will be hunted down by the whole village.

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In contrast, the villagers are reaching the black box “humourlessly” and “nervously” with hesitation as the paper took out of the box. Moreover, the fact that the villagers “beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads” when they got a blank piece of paper, drives the reader to wonder the unusual fact of the lottery behind the box.

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“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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The Lottery Template Topic Sentence: One can see by examining the symbolism of the worn out black box, and the foreshadowing of the children putting rocks in their pockets in the The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, that this story is a classic archetypal horror story. Argument: Firstly, one can see that when Mr. Summers arrived at the square carrying a black wooden box, he asked the villagers if anyone would give him a hand with putting the box on the three- legged stool, however, many hesitated to come near the black box, a symbolic twist that foreshadows the imminent ending. The black box has been used for generations, even before the oldest villager. It has been said that the current box was made from the pieces of the

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Since the story takes place in a small rural area it makes since as to why the lottery still takes place. The people are less educated and have not experienced much other culture outside of what is known by the villagers; many of the villagers are old and have taken part in the lottery their whole life. The elderly villagers make remarks about how nothing good can come from quitting the lottery because of hearing that other villages have quit participating in it. Because the setting is in a small town it is hard to break traditions no matter how good or bad the tradition

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It is also important to note Mrs. Hutchinson’s reaction to her being stoned, as she says, “‘It isn’t fair’” (8). This highlights the hypocrisy of not only Mrs. Hutchinson, but the rest of the characters. They give no reaction when their peers are killed, but if they were to be drawn, they oppose it. The destruction caused by the desensitization of the consequences of the lottery highlights the hypocrisy and disloyalty of the

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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 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.

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“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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“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize.

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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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Full of plot twists, and turns, “The Lottery” relies on its characters to convey a sense of normalcy throughout a majority of the story. The villagers’ acceptance of rituals allows them to act normal while knowingly partaking in a deadly tradition. Jackson’s brilliant use of deceptiveness leaves readers blind sighted as one could never predict this story’s outcome. Jackson’s work is renowned because of its unpredictable shift in tone. June 27, may appear to be a pleasant summer day, but this prediction could not be further from the truth.

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However, it is quite opposite of what the story portrays. What the reader does not see from the beginning of the story and does not capture until midway through, is that the lottery is actually something awful. When the lottery processions proceed the story starts to develop a more serious and somber mood. The townspeople show no remorse or empathy for one another and friendships slowly diminish. This is especially true when they know they will soon have to stone to death the villager who has drawn the marked paper; for instance, when Mrs. Delacroix picks up the biggest rock to bludgeon to death, the winner, Mrs. Hutchinson.

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To start off, a brief history of the lottery is presented to the reader, which quickly implants the idea that the Lottery is an annual event that has occurred for centuries within the village and surrounding area undisturbed. One example of this is the statement regarding how the original equipment for performing the Lottery was lost decades prior to the oldest villager's birth, thus implying a history that dates back over a hundred years. In addition, Old Man Warner states to Mr. Adams “There's always been a lottery.” These two examples establish the idea that the Lottery has been carried out for centuries in the village unchallenged.

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Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Conscientious Objector” convinces readers that the speaker’s cause is just and heroic by using references to great evils in history to increase the impact of her words on the audience. The poem constantly depicts the speaker’s acceptance of “Death” as an alternative to revealing information that would give away the security of another’s life. In the first stanza, Millay uses the imagery of Death riding a horse to show how her speaker refuses to assist Death in reaching its victims in places such as Cuba and the Balkans as mentioned in lines five and six, which at the time where places where corruption and death ran rampant. The speaker demonstrates their refusal to aid Death in this stanza by rejecting to help “him” mount his horse and leave to wreak his havoc on others. Stanza two switches to a different time period, Antebellum America, with Death pictured as a man hunting down a runaway slave, torturing the speaker in an attempt to extract information regarding the slave’s whereabouts.

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