The Silent Generation In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Differences between generations can be observed throughout the literary interpretations of society. Demonstrating some of the feelings that everyone has in how they are to act in their society, or be perceived. Major events in history that have brought us a succinct “silent generation” followed by the commonly known “baby boomer generation” that gave way to modern x and y generations that we know today. Each generation shaped both by its parent generation and the events that were occurring at the time of the birth of the respective generation. Causes of this change are primarily able to be summed up by war, debt, and evolving technology. Jackson published her work “The Lottery” in 1948 during the Baby Boomer influx and as such provides us with

Meanwhile her story played a part in shaping generation x by shocking the readers with the stark demonstration of mob mentality controlled by tradition. The purpose of this paper is to consider the differences between gen x, y, baby boomers and the Silent generation while focusing on Jackson’s work.

Let us start with the Silent Generation which can be symbolized in Jackson’s work by a rather ornery old man known as “Old Man Warner” (paragraph 32). He seems rather intent on leaving the status quo as it has existed before as he is operating on rather old fashioned values that came before the advancement of technology with a statement of, “Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (paragraph 34). “Fathers of the baby boomers were generally too young to have served in World War II and both parents would have gone through the great depression” (Hunter 2012) Considering how much hardship the Silent Generation went through; it is

If any thing a large portion of modern thoughts would be that the era between 1946 and 1964 was very detrimental to the group(s) of people to follow. According to The Oxford English Dictionary a Baby Boomer is “a person born during the baby boom following the second world war” and it seems that not only the Silent Generation, but also the following generations are noting this peace-loving generation as a “post industrial society” with the “decline of traditional social solidarities” (Bristow 62) as can be seen when “Old man Warner “petulantly” says that Mr. Summers in his crisp white shirt and jeans is “joking with everybody” (Jackson paragraph 33) Summers is could be construed as an upper class baby boomer who bridges the two generations as he both represents the focus on wealth that the baby boomers seem to be noted for while still being respected by all that are present at the gathering. If we are to infer that Mr. Graves is a symbolism for death, even he waits on the wealth and power that Mr. Summers, who is ironically a coal mine owner represents. Mr. Summers also represents the development of the time as keeps pushing everyone a little bit out of their comfort zone by insisting on slips of paper instead of wood chips. Paper possibly representing actual money instead of bartering. As well as the progress required towards larger cities as the