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Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

593 Words3 Pages

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.
Through her use of setting, …show more content…

Using the the setting of men talking about their daily lives, Jackson conceals the horrific ending. Also Jackson describes the setting of the day to be pleasant and soothing.Shirley Jackson illustrates"The morning of June 27th, was clear and sunny" and indicates "flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green". Jackson describes the day as winsome and typical.Jackson also specifies the day the of the tradition was June 27th, which also induces the reader that the tradition is ordinary. Jackson shows the boys are making a big pile of stones in the corner of the square. Shirley divulges"Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones", and they and rest of the boys "made a great pile of stone s in one corner of the square". The boys making a pile of stones is a troubling detail Jackson describes in the short story. Jackson betokened the eventual ending that the reader could possibly portray. Another disturbing fact is that a distressed black box is placed in the center of the square. Shirley Jackson says "the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers but the black box on it". This is disturbing detail that makes the reader wonder what is in the mysterious box .This detail ultimately leads to the terrifying ending. The people choosing from the box is another disturbing fact. Jackson writes “Mr. Summers declared the box to be open" and adresses "There had been a ritual

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Traditions: Proceed With Caution Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake or waiting for presents on Christmas eve are harmless rituals, but not all traditions are so benign. In the 1948 short story, “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson establishes that traditions can often be presumed to be virtuous; however, they can involve unethical practices which have no place in society. Through the use of archetypes, Jackson highlights this concept by displaying patterns and symbols in an ancient and barbaric tradition. In this world, citizens gather once a year to choose a single person from the community to be stoned to death, in hopes of receiving bountiful crops for their sacrifice. Brutal as the ritual is, the public remains aloof to the cruelty involved.

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This proves that blindly following tradition can be dangerous. The author supports this theme by using symbolism in the black box and stones. First of all, Shirley Jackson uses symbolism by describing the black box. Black usually symbolises death and hardship which proves true in this story. It was also described as splintered and faded.

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(Jackson, 411). The purpose of the box was to contain the names of the townsmen in it for the day of sacrifice. Instead, it was thrown from place to place as one person became in charge of where the box was to be kept safe until the next annual event. The people used to draw chips of wood but as the town grew the inconsistency of the ritual grew as well. This box symbolized the villagers’ connection to the lottery and it’s tradition.

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The connotation of this story is mellow, calm, and happy. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day: the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” (Jackson 1). This citation reveals that the setting is very calm and good. The connotation affects the theme because as one reads the story, the reader keeps thinking the story will end out good because of the words used to make such a positive connotation, but in the end, it turns out to be bad.

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692 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, members from a small farming town come together once a year to observe a ritual known as “the lottery.” Unfortunately, the winner of the lottery must be stoned to death due to an ancient belief that this will help their crops to grow, even though most members of the community don’t remember that is why they still perform the ritual. This ritual is all fun and games to the people in the community until they are determined the “winner” by drawing the sheet of paper with a black dot on it. One of the major themes of this story surrounds the dangers of blindly following traditions and the outcome of these acts.

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605 Words | 3 Pages

This symbolism foreshadows to the danger and death involved in the lottery. The box is also described as falling apart. The town’s people do not want to replace it because of stories they were told about the box being made of pieces of the box preceding it, all the way to the first people who started the tradition (Jackson 313). This reluctance to let go of something that is falling apart and broken represents their reluctance to get rid of the lottery although it is broken and illogical. This is how Jackson represents the danger of tradition; no matter how crazy, harmful, or backwards that tradition, if it is something a society is used to, it will continue to follow the

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1000 Words | 4 Pages

She again backs this up by stating, “The villagers kept their distance…” providing insight in that they didn’t want to be close to the box where they draw for the lottery. The people didn’t want to be associated with what the lottery and box represented and seemed to hesitate when it was their turn to draw from the black box. Jackson’s use of diction and the way she set the tone throughout the story clearly led the reader to believe that what the box and the lottery represented was negative and represented

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There are other symbols in this short story like the black dot on the slip of paper means that, that person is sentenced to death by the village people battering that person with rocks and pebbles until they die. Another symbol in this short story is the rocks and pebbles that mean, death and sorrow because the whole village including the person’s family has to throw rocks and pebbles at them to kill them. The black box is battered because the box is extremely old and has been around for a long time, in the story the villagers explained that the box has been around since the 1st settlers settled on that land, the black box has been replaced once and has some of the places of the old box in it but that was an extremely long time ago. Mr. Summers keeps suggesting to make a new box but no one wants to do it because everyone wants the traditional lottery to disappear forever but, Mr. Summers insects that

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1242 Words | 5 Pages

At 10 o’clock every villager stops what they’re doing to head to the square. When Mr. Summers arrives he has with him the black box. Mr. Martin and his oldest son help set it, he then stirs the papers, so the villagers don't think it's a rigged lottery. The box they’re using is the first box they’ve ever used to have the lottery. It might have been falling apart but the villagers got offended when speaking of replacing the box for a new one.

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Conformity is a powerful and influential behavior that can drastically affect a society’s circumstances. The morality and wellbeing of the individuals’ in a society are shaped by the everyday traditions and customs of that culture. Shirley Jackson, an award-winning author for her works in horror and mystery, unveils the perturbing effect of conformity on a society and its people in her short story “The Lottery.” In her thought-provoking story, a village situated in a warm area of England prepares to partake in a traditional crop fertility ritual that involves a paper drawing to elect a ‘winner’ who will be stoned to death. The societal conformity to continue this brutal tradition causes the life of a person to be insensitively taken away each

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Shirley Jackson made a Fictional Short Story called The Lottery That was published in the year 1948 in The New Yorker magazine. The setting is a small town/village, a farming community, with about 300 people in it. It was a bright, sunny day of June 27th, Lottery day. The flowers were blooming through the rich green grass. Families gathered in the Town Square by the bank and post office, as the children gathered rocks.

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177 Words | 1 Pages

In Shirley Jackson’s short story,” the lottery” the author uses the box as a symbol to convey the underlying message that, traditional rituals can cause fear in people which affect their actions of an individual or a community and make them afraid of breaking traditions. For instance, the text states when Jessie was screaming that, “ you didn't give him enough time to pick out the paper he wanted.” This is showing how the fear of winning the lottery affected her actions by screaming that the whole lottery is not fair and then that is also in a way denying tradition or questioning it. The after effect of the action she took lead to her death either she screamed or not she was still going to die because it is their tradition and that what she

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302 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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467 Words | 2 Pages

In her story "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson implies the negative consequences of blindly following tradition through the acceptance, by the villagers, of the tradition of the lottery. Jackson suggests that the people of the village are afraid to give up the little tradition they have, even if it is not good. Every year after the lottery, the conductor of the lottery, Mr. Summers suggests that they should build a new box but, “No one [likes] to upset even as much tradition as [is] represented by the box.” (Jackson, 1). The black box symbolizes ritual and tradition.

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556 Words | 3 Pages

Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. ”(5) Plot Summary On the warm summer day of June 27th, the villagers in the town gather together to participate in the annual lottery. Mr. Summers, who runs the event, begins by having the head of every household pick a slip of paper from a black box.

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