The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Moral Dilemmas

Research Paper Moral dilemma, noun; “A situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two courses of action, either of which entails transgressing a moral principle”. Often while reading American Literature, you will come across a moral dilemma, or struggle within the characters of a novel. This struggle defines the character, and their true intentions. The author’s use of this moral dilemma is present within their background information, as well as the time period and use of literary philosophy in which their piece was written. Most well-known moral struggles occur within Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as Tessie Hutchinson in “The Lottery”, and Abigail in The Crucible. Harper Lee, the author of To Kill

Jackson does this in an unusual way as she almost contradicts her upbringing. Unlike Lee, Jackson doesn’t give her characters characteristics that she personally has, but rather ones that she wants to see. She also came from an upbringing that dared her to write the way she did. “Authors & Artists (Volume 9)” states that, “Jackson was born into an affluent, socially prominent family. From an early childhood, she openly rebelled against the restrictions placed on women of her social class.” She was expected to be like the other women of her time- housewives that were proper and who simply played their role. Needless to say, Jackson did not follow this mere outline, and this gave her a personal moral struggle. Jackson wrestled with the internal struggle of whether she should follow the status quo or if she should go against what was expected and be a less formal and proper woman. From an early age she dared to be different and did so by exploring very gruesome topics. Jackson was also a natural born storyteller and would do whatever it took to tell a good story. Martha Ragland goes on to tell us in “Authors and Artists (Volume 9,)” that this trait of Jackson’s stems back to her childhood. “Jackson makes it very clear: the writer’s only real job is to catch the reader’s attention and hold it. As a school girl at a private school in New York,

Postmodernism was considered to be the first post World-War II literary style. It was notorious for its negative and pessimistic viewpoint on things that are traditionally not viewed in that light. Postmodernism is also characterized by reliance on narrative techniques such as fragmentation, paradox, and the unreliable narrator. Keeping these characteristics in mind, it is easy to see why Shirley Jackson thrived in this time period. According to the University of Toledo, modernism is a term coined by Jacques Derrida with the belief that there are no circumstances in which words can create a universal truth or a universal connotation. This holds to be true in “The Lottery.” The “lottery” does traditionally have a positive connotation. When one wins the lotto or the mega millions it is typically a celebrated life-changing event. Jackson, in her grim nature, takes the lottery and turns it into something that is anything but positive. When we think of the lottery, we think of winning, but it is evident by the end of the story that this lottery results in a major loss by bringing to light a moral struggle. Another one of Derrida’s believes that molded the postmodern era is that the text is all the reader needs to understand a story. Furthermore, a reader doesn’t need to consider what is going on in the world to fully appreciate and learn from the story. This is true with Jackson’s work and primarily “The