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Tradition In Jay Yarmove's The Lottery

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Jay Yarmove, from the University of Cincinnati, wrote “The underpinning of Shirley Jackson’s famous post-World War II story “The Lottery” demonstrate that the work is far greater than the sum of its parts” (Yarmove). This one sentence speaks volumes about the theme and symbolism in the story. The story is written in a manner that allows the reader to empathize with the characters and shows the importance but also the mockery of family and traditions.
Traditions are often thought of to be a way for families or communities to demonstrate the customs or beliefs of previous generations. Traditions are commonly thought to be a positive reflection on the past, however in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson traditions are not positive in nature. …show more content…

Traditions are prevalent, particularly in small towns, like the one in the story, as a way to link families to past generations. The lottery that is held each year concludes with the villagers taking part in a vicious murder. The villagers are not fully aware of the reasons behind the lottery only that it is tradition and it has been taking place for many years. This shows the reality and consequences that come with thoughtlessly following such a bizarre …show more content…

Graves and Mr. Summers that are on the stage are the two most powerful men in the village. At first their names seem harmless or is it just a coincidence the lottery takes place in the summer and the outcome of the lottery is ultimately death or the grave. Mr. Graves’s name “reinforces the solemnity of the occasion and is associated with death” (Shields). As Mr. Summers is perhaps the wealthiest man in the village and is ultimately the one who controls the lottery. The details the author used in describing the characters or the families is another symbolism between the timing of the lottery and the family ties, or lack of, that is presented in the story. From naming the characters to the roles they each have in the story Jackson is sure to make sure the readers know each of their importance to the

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Annotated Bibliography 1. Jackson The Lottery By: Yarmove, Jay A. Explicator. Summer94, Vol. 52 Issue 4, p242. 4p.

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Usually there’s a winner in a lottery, but not in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story intrigued me by it's suspenseful nature and it's chaotic events. In small town America, they come together once a year to perform an annual tradition. Mrs. Jackson demonstrates literary devices such as foreshadowing, mood, and conflict in “The Lottery”. Foreshadowing is used quite a few times in “The Lottery”.

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“The Lottery”, a horror story created by Shirley Jackson, is about a moderate sized village that sacrifices innocent villagers in a forsaken lottery for the sake of tradition, and for their belief of good fortune that will arise. This story presents a lot of themes that relate to the real world, and these themes revolve around the negatives of society such as shunning, and forced indoctrination. One theme demonstrated was the theme of tradition versus progress. Tradition is not always right because it prevents society from progressing forward. Shirley Jackson vividly presents that theme through the characters’ malicious actions.

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Envision that your favorite tradition has been completely changed, and the most memorable part is removed. Now, it’s been completely twisted and taken out of context. This short story takes place in a normal town, with an annual tradition, The Lottery. Someone would think a lottery would be a worthy tradition, but by the end, readers learn the lottery is actually extremely grim and unfortunate. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson builds suspense to portray the theme of people needing to be aware of the dangers and impacts of blindly following traditions through characters, setting, and allusion.

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Have you ever done something that you regretted since other people were doing it? Have you ever thought about this and wondered “Would I have done this on my own?” In the dystopian novel “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, Lois Lowry shows the theme of people following tradition by showing sameness throughout the book. In the dystopian novel ”The Lottery” they show the theme of tradition through a long running tradition that is outdated.

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This can relate to real life because if you have a tradition to do this,this,and this at a holiday, there will be a very, very slim chance that you will change it, because it’ what you have always done. To start with, in this story the power of tradition changed everything because nobody knew why they were doing the lottery or who even started it. Nobody ever asked questions and they did what they were told to do. They didn’t ask questions because that’s all they knew, also they knew if they would ask questions they could possibly get themselves killed. They also followed the steps of the lottery in the same way they have always been.

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Traditions were made to continue for generations. Everyone has a dark side including us, but in the story “The Lottery” the villagers are evil and cold hearted because they don’t care about who they kill. Traditions are events that happen every year or at an age like in the lottery. The book “The Lottery” is about a tradition that people do every year and you will find out about the tradition.

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Historically, in every culture, important practices exist which transmit traditional values to subsequent generations as traditions is a critical piece of our culture. They help developing and moulding the attitudes and characters of humans, forming the structure and foundation of families and our society. Notwithstanding, many traditions promote social unity and coherent, some traditions erode the integrity, psychological and physical health of individuals as can be seen in the story “The Lottery” writer by Shirley Jackson. In the story, head of the families take a lot in choosing the family that going to sacrifice one of the family members to increase the crop yield. Furthermore, the story “Looking for Rain God” written by Bessie Head reflects the belief in traditional practices, resulting in merciless death of two children.

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The Lottery is a story by Shirley Jackson. It is about a town that has a type of stoning event called the lottery. It is basically like gambling with your life. Each person has to pull out a slip of paper out of a black box. There are enough slips for each member of the town.

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The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who

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Shirley Jackson's The Lottery is about analyzing traditional social and class divisions. Because the story is asking us to think about the ceremony and traditions that we careless following as members of our society. The story is analysis the ways custom is concealed right and wrong, the lottery is becoming a way to analysis social and class divisions. The random samples of paper mean that some of the family are fortunate and that others aren’t fortunate.

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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.

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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.

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The villagers on “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson are afraid to let go of their tradition, the lottery. They are concern of unknown consequences that will happen if they change their old customs. So, for every year, the villagers gather at the square to do the lottery at 10 AM . The villagers are afraid to quit their outdated tradition because they think that changing their old customs will only bring trouble.

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