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Symbolism of the lottery
The lottery shirley jackson analysis essay
The lottery shirley jackson analysis essay
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We come to find that the lottery is not just some game, but in all reality, the “winner” will be stoned to death by the rest of the townspeople. Being that there are serious consequences of the lottery, the townspeople go with the flow because they do not want to be stoned also. At the end of the story the readers realize that the townspeople have not gathered for a game and the name was not drawn for a special prize or rewards. Tessie, the “winner”, shows up late to the lottery, claiming she forgot what day it was. What is even more surprisingly ironic about Tessie Hutchinson being the “winner” is that her and her husband have always protested the lottery.
Shirley Jackson uses “The Lottery” to make a point about traditions, rules, and human behavior. To begin, traditions are something that relapse over time. Traditions take time to develop, but once developed people don’t happen to like it to change. In “The Lottery” one of the traditions is preparing the black box for the lottery to take place. In paragraph 5 on page 48 it talks about how there was a story about the present black box that was made by the black box before.
The Danger of Tradition Traditionally many ancient societies would kill their people to sacrifice to God in order to obtain rain or a good harvest. These mindlessly, followed traditions were never critically thought about and therefore citizens died year after year. A similar tragedy occurs in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story features a civilization much like our own but with one small difference, the town’s people hold a lottery every year and the town stones who ever loses to death.
The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the characters have different views on the lottery. Tessie complains how Mr. Summers rushed Bill and that shows she does not like the lottery. She is also late to the lottery which shows she might not care about it. This is important because to Tessie, the lottery should never happen and she does not like or care about it. She goes to it because it is a tradition but she does not really want to go if she forgets about it.
Tradition is the framework of most cultures and religions. In “The Lottery” author Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to showcase the grim reality of rituals and how people blindly follow a mentality of traditionalism. Numerous civilizations utilize traditions as a sign of keeping beliefs, mindsets, and the people as a whole alive. The first example of the grim reality of tradition is the black box and its symbolic reflection on death.
In the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the characters face their fates determined by playing in the town’s annual lottery. The main idea of the story is, sometimes in life, you have to take certain chances, regardless if you are blindly taking that chance; however, the natives of the village are willingly taking a chance of death by playing the lottery. There are many different themes in this story; however, I will only focus on the hypocrisy trait that many of the characters show throughout the story. The hypocrisy theme stuck out the most to me in this short story because it seemed to be a lot of back and forth between opinions and loyalties of many of the characters.
Imagine a society where killing somebody for the sake of a tradition is acceptable. In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson describes an ordinary village with normal people, but as the story progress the details of their yearly practice known as “the lottery” unravels to be more disturbing. The author subverts the readers’ expiations by persuading the reader into assuming “the lottery” is a ordinary tradition until unusual details and the behavior of the characters come into place. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.
Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” tells us how the people of the town get together on June twenty seventh every year to perform a ritual that was started back in the day by their ancestors. The children would gather to the town square first and start piling up rocks in a corner. After the children the men would show up and then the women would show up last. Mr. Summers would call each family in alphabetic order to draw a slip of paper from the box, for the ritual. Once everyone had a piece of paper in their hands, they would look at the slips, who ever had the black dot got stoned to death.
Traditions in the Lottery The definition of tradition is the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice (Dictionary). Shirley Jackson, a science fiction writer, highlights how some society’s traditions are significant; however, the result of the event can create a dystopian society. There are important examples regarding tradition in the story of “The Lottery”. Tradition is exemplified through the stones and black box in the short story.
Tradition is defined as a belief or any action that is being followed from one generation to the next and is being followed unquestionably. One of the example of the short story in which tradition is being followed blindly is “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson. The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a vicious and heinous tradition that the people in the community celebrate every year on 17th of June. People in this traditional community, every year hold a village wide in which everyone in the village are expected to participate. The lottery is held in a symbolic black box that holds hundreds of pieces of paper from where everyone in the village must choose one.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson has many themes that lie beneath it. The most powerful message that this story shares with us; is the fact that we can no longer blindly follow the will or traditions of others. Some of these traditions we are so use to doing, but they can affect or even harm others in the process. The children in the story “The Lottery” didn't know the actions they're doing are wrong, because there raised with the community telling them it's okay. All of us need to have a voice for telling others what we think and contribute to the solution.
Traditions, passed down from generation to generation, are typically seen in a positive and memorable way. Whether that is gathering around the table every night for dinner or participation in a cultural tradition, most families have some type of tradition that is held onto. But when does tradition become dangerous? Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”, gives readers a look into when people conform to a tradition that is gruesome and unnecessary. The narrator, who is one of the villagers, is a flat character who tells the story in an objective third person point of view.
He reminds everyone of the rules of the lottery and that no one must open their slip till everyone has gotten them. He reads off the names of each family to come grab a slip beginning with the men of the household. Villagers chat while Mr. Summers is reading off the names. They speak of other towns giving up the lottery, which Old Man Warner is completely against.
The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson takes place in a small New England village. It is in summer, to be more specific, 27th June. It is a clear and sunny day. From the start of the short story, there is no clear reason why the village conducts the lottery. There are some villagers that are not keen to participate in it.
Shirley Jackson’s “The lottery” is a story based on tradition. When hearing the word tradition, most people think of team rituals before games, or something families do together annually. However, Jackson is obviously not like most people. She builds up a fair amount of tension around this ritual that is taking place to make readers wonder what is going on. She uses many different techniques to show that sometimes, traditions are not always meant to go on forever.
