Shirley Jackson once said, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”. Shirley’s story “The Lottery” takes place in a small village where the population was only 300. The children picked up some stones outside the village and brought it where the people do the lottery, which was run by Mr.Summers and Mr.Grave. From the commencement, it sounds normal but as the story progresses the reader will start to notice that it is not a normal lottery. It was actually like a ritual in which one of the people who receives a paper marked with a black dot will be stoned to death with the stones brought by the children. The unfortunate winner was Tessie who was late to the lottery said it was unfair, but at the denouement nothing changed and she was stoned to death. From the ephemeral story, there are many signs that show that the character’s names and the black box have symbolic interpretations which describes the meaning of the story. …show more content…
Those names are Delacroix which are one of the families in the square and Mr.Graves who was the follower for Mr.Summers. Mrs.Delacroix which “means “of the cross” in French. It denoted one who live near a cross symbol, or near a crossroads.”(Behindthename.com) and Mr.Graves which also means “Death”(Dictionary.com) both foreshadows what is going to happen at the denouement. Near the end of the ephemeral story, both Mr.Grave and Ms.Delacroix gave death to Tessie which hinted from their names from the beginning of the