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Women In The Lottery

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Using details from the story, discuss how “The Lottery” depicts and treats its female characters. Are they treated in a positive or a negative manner?

Women are worthless human beings, who are clearly inferior to men. At least that has been the theory in the past. Throughout history, many stories have been written with intention to not only entertain or inform, but also to depict sexism, anecdotally. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a clear example of this. In “The Lottery,” female characters are portrayed negatively in accordance with the emotional difference between men and women, patriarchal oppression, and other examples found within the text.

One way that this story negatively characterizes women is by displaying, and nearly exaggerating, the idea that females are typically more emotional than males. During the time period, hysteria-also known as wandering womb-was commonly diagnosed in woman with symptoms of weight gain, irritability and overdramatic or attention-seeking behavior. Hysteria is implied within the story when Bill Hutchinson reveals the card that decides his family’s imminent fate. In response to this, his wife Tessie goes ballistic, claiming he wasn’t given enough time, finding any excuse good enough to be given a second chance. In other words, her …show more content…

In the story, Mr. Summers, a man, conducts the lottery and is in complete control of the event. His is supremacy, however is limited only by chance and statistics. An additional example the author uses to show that males are politically superior is by using a system in which the head of household is in every case a male. Throughout the text, it is evident that this particular society favors those with the Y chromosome. Male dominance is implied more specifically when Mr. Summers is ensuring that everyone is in attendance, calling family names, he

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