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The Lottery Analysis Essay

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Hudson Dials ENG 105 Professor Andrew Goforth 8 March 2024 Analysis: “The Lottery” and its themes. “The Lottery” is a short story about a small town of about three-hundred people that has a tradition of hosting a raffle to determine which person within the town will die. The tradition has been around for a long time, and according to one of the oldest people in town, more than seventy-seven of them have occurred and are currently hosted by Mr. Summers, who is one of the most powerful people in town. The townspeople are anxious about the raffle, but are complicit in the tradition. After the Hutchinson’s family are drawn in the raffle, Mrs. Hutchinson, or Tessie starts to vocally state how unfair and evil the lottery is, but after being the …show more content…

In the story there are a lot of clues that say that the lottery is about tradition, like the lottery itself. The lottery is a tradition that “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” Paragraph 5: Line 1. According to another statement by Old Man Warner “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Paragraph 14: Line 17. The two quotes show that the tradition of the lottery in the town outlives the oldest member of the town. The town seems like it is averse to changing the lottery, due to the length of time they have been actively doing the lottery. Since the town has been actively doing the tradition for at least seventy-seven years, some of the people think that society cannot function without having the lottery. When Mr. Adam said that a town from the north stopped doing the lottery, Old Man Warner called them fools and said “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody works any more, live that way for a while.” paragraph 12: Line 1. The quote shows how important the lottery is for him, and how he does

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“The Lottery” Analytical Essay “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson has many different character aspects and views showing their feelings towards the annual lottery. The characters expressed their emotions in neither hidden, nor open ways, but throughout the story the reader is able to conclude how the characters proceed to the annual event. The story has as very gloomy, somber theme containing characters that go along with those characteristics, however, some show different feelings. Many characters in this story have a positive look to the affair. It sounds as though a majority of the villiagers are tolerable to the lottery, that is of course, until they get chosen.

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This tradition was encouraged by a man named Old Man Warner, who convinced everyone that the lottery must never be changed, as he said, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 30). This shows how much Old Man Warner opposes the idea of the lottery, which causes the other civilians to believe that it is a much needed thing too. In addition to that, it also shows what a huge role Old Man Warner plays in this

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The plot of the story wasn’t hard to understand except I didn’t realize what was going on until the end. Old man warner explains the purpose of the lottery he said: “'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon'” (Jackson 4). So the lottery was based on the superstition that someone had to die for the corn to grow. When Mr. Adam told Old man Warner about people in the north that had stop the lottery he told Mr. Adam that they were a “Pack of young fools” (Jackson 4).

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It allows the reader to experience the lottery in the way that the villagers would. They don’t know any better, and it's been a part of their lives for as long as anyone remembers, and the reader experiences this too as they don’t know about the dark twist until the end. Jackson’s portrayal of Old Man Warner also makes his attitude towards blind tradition quite visible. He complains how other villages are getting rid of the lottery and claims that it will cause everyone to “go back to living in caves.” Traditionally, older people are less likely to have an open mind to change, and this trait is visible in the character of Old Man Warner.

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warner, also known as old man warner, has participated in seventy-seven lotteries. He acts as if the other towns are “crazy fools” for not having the tradition they have always had. Mr.Warner is threatened from the idea of change. He believes that i the lottery is in occurrence then society will maintain stable. In addition, he as well firmly agrees with an old wise tale, “Lottery on june, corn be heavy soon.”

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One of the problems Shirley Jackson points on in The Lottery is, that people tend to follow the stream in order to minimalize the necessary effort and to feel like a part of society. This can be easily demonstrated on a quote from a character of the Old Man Warner: 'There’s always been a lottery.' By this point of view, we can understand, that the lottery is a tradition to the people, and they are willingly following it thinking, that this tradition saves their crop. Therefore this shows us how the people value this tradition even over their friend’s

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The character Old Man Warner serves as a plot device that describes how different the tradition has become over the years, and how the village people no longer respect it. Jackson even points out that the paraphernalia of the lottery has changed, the box becoming less remarkable as the years went on, and the use of paper slips instead of pieces of wood for the villagers' names. Warner alludes to the fact that the lottery is based in some sort of superstition surrounding a fruitful harvest, saying, “Used to be a saying about, ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (p. 9) However, based on the fact that certain villages no longer practice the lottery, and the general tone of the village having no real regard for the tradition, it is unlikely that anyone actually believes the lottery provides a fruitful harvest, making the tradition a senseless act of violence that everyone follows for no tangible

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(Jackson). Old Man Warner ridicules the idea of ending the tradition as a way to stigmatize such an effort. Some of the lottery’s history is mentioned, “There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here” (Jackson). The history of the lottery is employed as a form of propaganda to add rationality to the gruesome practice. Propaganda leads to people accepting the lottery as an annual

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Throughout centuries, traditions and rituals have had the ability to control one’s behavior. In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, she tells the reader of a small village. On the surface, this community may seem relatively normal. However, despite the picturesque appeal, this falsely serene village has a distinct deceitful flaw. On June 27th, every year, a lottery takes place.

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On February 1st, a Wednesday morning my professor, Cheryl Champagne show us a video online based on the story that we recently read called the Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Jackson was born in San Francisco, California in 1916. On June 26th,1948, the lottery was published by The New Yorker. The theme of the story is a small town that does annual tradition basically a ritual known as “the lottery”. By honoring this malicious act once, a year, the town believes that no corruption will occur in their town as long as they honor this strange tradition.

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“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. The story’s plot is not hard to follow except that the reader does not really know what is actually going on until the end. Despite there not being too much going on with the story, there is still some symbolism. The lottery itself has some potential meanings. One possibility is that the lottery could symbolize traditions in today’s society that are not practical.

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Old Man Warner considers it to be foolish to stop the lottery. “‘…There’s always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly” (308). As long as he has been alive, there has been a lottery and he refuses to let that change. This repeating message of there always being a lottery supports the theme of resistant to change based on

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When I read the beginning of the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson I felt the story was bored and tedious. When I looked at the topic “The Lottery” I was thinking that the story should be about somebody won the lottery and money, and the story started so nicely at a lovely summer day, but the last part was really shock. My mean was like what's going on is the reading that i supposed to read? So I go back to the story read and read. The story is based on a village has a rite is to participate in a lottery run the man who presided the rite is by Mr. Summers an old man has a lot of time to do things for the village.

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The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson is short story that takes place in a town of approximately only three hundred people. On June 27th each year the villagers meet in the middle of Town Square, this is where the lottery takes place. The villagers wait for the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black box. Each family through the town is represented by a white piece of paper; the heads of the household or the family representatives take turns drawing from a black box that contains the three hundred pieces of papers. Mr. Summers the night before marks a black dot on one piece, indicating the winner of the ‘lottery’.

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The Lottery is an eerie short tale by Shirley Jackson. In The Lottery, Jackson uses different elements of ritual, tradition, and scapegoating. In summary, The Lottery is about villagers in a small town coming together to commit an extremely disturbing act. Lists of families are written on slips of paper and then put into an ancient black box. Whoever’s name is drawn is later sacrificed by stoning to death.

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