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Traditions In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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There are many themes in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” however the one that I think stands out most is following traditions blindly. This story can be perceived as an exaggerated example of what today’s society looks like when traditions are followed while picking and choosing what parts of the tradition will be left out. When a group of people agree to follow an old tradition and do not fully understand why they are following it, things can easily get twisted. Within this short story some characters played major roles and seemed to have an extreme amount of power. Mr. Summers was said to be the man who everyone felt sorry for because he had no children and a mean wife. He also was the man who ran all civic duties such as town …show more content…

The President cannot make any major decisions without it going through congress. This does bring some unfair benefits to the members of congress. The majority of them have had the same job for about forty years and most of them are similar; white and old men. On September 30th, 2013, Congresswoman Jackie Walorski voted for an elimination of Obamacare subsidies for the President, Members of Congress, and their staff. The night that she voted she said, “"Plainly stated, it is unfair for the president and Members of Congress to receive special perks from Obamacare. Since enactment, the president has granted multiple Obamacare waivers and exemptions to big businesses, labor unions, and Members of Congress-picking winners and losers at the expense of the American people. If Washington Democrats continue to defend Obamacare, they should follow the law under the same conditions as the American people."(Walorski.) When there is a large group with the majority similar and working together for a long time, it is extremely easy to bypass common laws that civilians need to follow. One of the majorities, Walorski, being a congresswoman has given the rest of the United States a little insight on how this

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Most people know the lottery as a contest to win money. But in the short story, “The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson, the lottery is not a simple game competing for money. In this small village’s version of the lottery, everyone must draw out of a box, and if their family is chosen then the whole family must redraw and the death of a member is decided. After the fate is decided, the rest of the village throws stones at him or her until he or she dies. The villages reasoning of this process is they believe it guarantees a plentiful crop season.

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This has blocked the president from making this major legislative achievement that would lead to abolishment of his predecessor health care law. The moderates have been advocating that their constituents to keep some of the

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In fact, looking at the Barrack Obama congress

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“The Lottery”, a short story written by Shirley Jackson, presents the reader with the negative consequences of following tradition. The story is set in a small town where a ritual called the lottery is taken place in which the “winner” gets killed by the other participants. Since the lottery is part of the town’s traditions, nobody wishes to get rid of it or make any changes to it regardless of its cruelty. For example, the box used for the lottery is in a very bad state and would need to be replaced. However, nobody has taken any further action to find a new box because the old one has been used for a long time and is said to be made of the remains of the one previous to it.

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618 Words | 3 Pages

Many current customs can be traced back hundreds of years. Sometimes these traditions change over time, often so much so that the details or even the original purpose can be forgotten. In her short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson points out how even modern will participate in rituals that can range from foolish to barbaric in the name of antiquated cultural customs whose details and very purpose has long been forgotten. Jackson sets the scene with a description of a sunny…summer day” in a civilized community, with a “post office,” “bank,” and a “school” (paragraph 1). Little children play with stones” and run around in the schoolyard (2).

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605 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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838 Words | 4 Pages

A republican congress is not the only thing augmenting the blocking of Obamacare. President Trump has made his opinion clear that Obamacare needs to be dealt with, saying numerous times that he intends to repeal and reinstate a new healthcare bill. Trump’s opposition to the bill has been very evident as he’s expressed his opinion

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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.

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Typically, when someone passes away. It is thought whoever did die, they were old or possibly even sick. In the short story “The Lottery”, sometimes you don’t have an opinion when to choose when to die. And it doesn’t happen in the most humane way at all, the whole village ends up throwing stones at someone until they are dead. And this is why cruelty shouldn’t be allowed due to the effects on the human brain.

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569 Words | 3 Pages

One of the most skillful and devastating aspects of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is that it constantly topples the reader’s expectations about what should happen next or even at all. This story is certainly suspense because it’s not until the very end until the reader knows what’s really in store for the “winner”. In the short story, The Lottery, Jackson states irony and betrayal mostly towards the end of the story because usually winning the lottery evokes a sense of luck but in this story it’s the total opposite. “Mr.Summers spoke frequently about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.” The tradition of the black box wasn’t so much as tradition anymore but more towards just the violence.

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1174 Words | 5 Pages

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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637 Words | 3 Pages

“Tradition is a prison with majority opinion the modern jailer” is a quote from Henry S. Haskins. The meaning of this quote is that traditions are sometimes followed by opinions of change, like why do they carry on with the tradition if they don't even remember why they started it? Then when nobody has the courage to speak up about change to the tradition, they continue with it and it becomes the problem of today. In the realistic fiction novel The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson is about the main character Mrs. Hutchison who is a former victim of a tradition the town has held for years and In a result of her winning the “lottery.” Mrs. Hutchinson ends up being stoned to death by a crowd of 300 people who threw rocks at here.

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1086 Words | 5 Pages

The Affordable Healthcare Act passed in 2010 by the Democrats, meanwhile the U.S. House and Senate Republicans remained unanimous in their opposition of the act. The Republicans promised to replace the bill with a better plan if a Republican were to be elected. Even though the republican won majority control of the U.S. House in 2011 and the senate in 2015, President Obama made sure that there were not any changes to the policy. In the recent election, Republican, candidate Donald Trump won the election. President Trump has threatened to repeal and replace Obamacare throughout his whole election.

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In May of this year, 2017, Congress has found themselves in another gridlock due to healthcare. The Republican Congress is trying to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the American Healthcare Act. This is creating gridlock because not all republicans are supportive of the American Healthcare Act in its current form, so they continue to re-draft and debate on it; therefore, this prevents this piece of legislation from being passed and healthcare is still surrounded with the same problems as

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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare was signed into a law on March 23, 2010 by President Barack Obama.1 In July of 2009, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi along with a group of Democrats from the House of Representatives disclosed a plan that included reform within the healthcare system introducing the Affordable Care Act.2 On September 17, 2009 this bill was introduced in the House and a few weeks later the bill was passed/agreed on. In December 24, 2009 the law was then passed in the Senate. On March 21st, 2010 with resolving differences, the house agreed to the changes to the law made by the Senate and the plan was approved by the House in a 219-212 vote. On March 23, 2010 the law was signed into an

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