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Main ideas themes in the lottery
Traditions shape the social reality in 'The Lottery' even after the community forgets the roots of those traditions.
What does this story of the lottery tell us about society
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In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson there are many different types expressed throughout. Immediately, there is Dramatic Irony with the title of the story because we associate the Lottery with the winning of a grand prize that will improve the life of that person. Although in the story the winner is stoned to death by the village catching the reader off guard. Over the course of the story we are alluded to believe this occasion is a joyful time with children playing in the village, “square dances, the teen club, {and} the halloween program” (pg.1). Additionally, it is ironic that when Mr. Hutchinson is ask come upstage his wife is eager and encourages her husband to chose which in reality leads to her death.
The setting in “The Lottery” is placed in a small town of about three hundred citizens in Virginia. Jackson places the setting in a quiet town with the perception of regular people to take away the assumption or prediction that the town was full of crude behavior. The time frame was right at the beginning of summer, kids getting out of school, families being together and the community as a whole coming together to participate in a yearly ritual. “School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them…” (242)
" The cheerful banter and casual conversations among the townspeople before the lottery sharply contrast with the horrifying nature of the event. For instance, when Mr. Summers mentions the significance of a "lottery in June" and the expectations of a
No one was dauntless enough to question the tradition without the trepidation of gregarious shunning, but after the lottery was drawn, a lot transmuted. Unbeknownst to Mrs. Hutchinson, she would be the inauspicious victor of the lottery and would reveal to everyone in the village that she was the victor. She had no worries that the lottery was going to affect her life in the first place. It was a shock when virtually immediately after she emerged to gruesome tradition, she was declared the triumpher of the lottery. Mrs. Hutchinson was taken back and could remotely process what transpired.
Breaking Traditions For a Better Society Traditions are beliefs and customs that all cultures, races, and religions have that are passed down between generations. They can connect the past, with the present, and the future. There are many traditions that are practiced as a second nature, such as toasting at a wedding. However, there are other traditions that have been passed down that aren 't practiced as widley.
That the lottery was for the harvest so that they could feed the people of the town. One other way Shirley Jackson used
In The Lottery, the act of the lottery has taken place for many years. One of the oldest citizens of the town is celebrating his participation in his 77th lottery. He is dissatisfied with the way things related to the lottery have changed. He is also very weary of the communities who have quit practicing the lottery. He describes the communities that have stopped the practice of the lottery as a “pack of crazy fools” (Jackson, Literature)
Daniel Kalo Ms. Kaczmarek ENG2DE-01 April 11, 2024 The Cruel Blindness of “The Lottery” In society, it is important to have order, peace, and good morals to function properly. Though, in the case of the town in “The Lottery,” all of these benchmarks are disregarded, creating a brutal and disturbing scene. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the townspeople blindly follow the tradition of killing a person every year, through drawing lots.
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.
Does winning a lottery always make the chosen person lucky? When you think about lotteries, the first thing that usually comes to mind is riches. Who wouldn’t want to win the lottery? If it means it’ll benefit your life, why not take the chance, right? Well, you’re in for a surprise once you read this short story by Shirley Jackson called “The Lottery” written in 1948.
People of the town believe that if they ‘d quit the lottery than the people of the town would think that it’s different like Old Man Warner, who had been in the lottery for over 70 yrs.
The Lottery In the short story “The Lottery”by Shirley Jackson, the characters of the story all have mixed emotions about this lottery. The character, Tessie Hutchinson, her emotions about this lottery is that she thinks it is unfair. Mrs. Hutchinson thinks the lottery is unfair because they didn't give her family enough time to pick a slip. But i think it was fair because everyone takes their own time.
Many people would die to win the lottery; in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you would do anything NOT to win this lottery. This annual lottery reveals the negative aspects of this town’s Tradition, Savagery, Barbarism, and cold-heartedness. In this paper I will show why this town blindly follows these customs, not because it’s a tradition but because of the accepting wickedness that can be shown. Why does the town follow this foolish tradition? Throughout “The Lottery” the narrator tells that the people do not remember how the lottery began, and that some of the older people believe the lottery has changed over the years, that now people just want to get it over with as fast as possible.
The tradition of the lottery has been carried out for so long in this village that nobody even knows the reason for its occurring in the first place and nobody questions it. When Old Man Warner, the oldest man in the village, is told about other villages giving up the tradition of the lottery, he says that they are, “[A] pack of crazy fools [...]. There [has] always been a lottery [...]” (Jackson, 4). There is no reason why there has always been a lottery except that every year on June 27th, they held the lottery.
“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts off with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers holds the lottery. Once everyone gathers, every family draws a slip of paper out of an old black box, and the family with the black mark on their paper gets picked. After that, each family member older than 3 years of age re-draws a slip of paper again and this time, the person with the black mark on their paper gets picked as the “lucky winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery, with her reward is being stoned to death.
