Use Of Foreshadowing In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson explores the dangers of clinging to tradition and the its detrimental affects on the community it encompasses. Shirley Jackson uses suspense, foreshadowing and imagery to a make the reader aware of the dangers of clinging to forgotten and age old traditions. She continuously reminds us of how the towns people are blindly accepting of The Lottery and that they have allowed ritual murder to become part of their town celebrations. Murder isn’t something we should rejoice, about Shirley Jackson tries to express this to her the reader using a major plot twist, shocking us into understanding her purpose.

The short story takes place in a small and sunny town where each year on June the 27th, the community gathers to

The story takes place in a ‘sunny, warm and fresh’ small town creating a cheerful mood for the reader. The use of the happy and descriptive language gives us the idea that the story will have a happy ending. Shirley Jackson foreshadows this happy, communised town by talking about the young boys stuffing stones in their pockets, creating a curiosity of what the stones would be used for in such a happy place. This technique is effective as it alerts the readers of something strange occurring in the town. Foreshadowing the climax throughout the story allows Shirley Jackson to ease the readers into the plot twist so it isn’t a complete shock, and when analysing the text we understand why she says certain things for example ‘Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of

This creates curiosity for the reader and urges them to continue reading. Her reveal of the true nature of The Lottery comes as a shock because the reader is unsure of what is actually happening until the first stone hits Tessie’s head. The use of suspense during the story gives the reader time to think about how much The Lottery means to the towns people even though it costs them their lives. The reader are is taken through the entire ritual still unaware of the story’s purpose but once Tessie’s black dot is discovered the author intensifies the suspense and that reveals the ending. This leaves the audience shocked and confused. However, shocking the reader makes them remember the story and understand its