Irony In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

THE LOTTERY by SHIRLEY JACKSON

It is strange that rational people are able of barbarity when that barbarity is allowed by the majority or by society. Irony is the element of literature use from the title to the end of the short story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson. When I read the title, I thought about a reward, a prize that someone could win or lost in a bet or a game. I notice that the dramatic point of view and the situational irony contribute to the irony. To create objectivity and move the action forward, the narrator use dramatic point of view. In this sentence “The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.” (Shirley Jackson 12) creates probably an emotional reaction among reader; even

The third person point of view allows the end of the story to be ironic. Situational irony is also used through the story. The narrator describes the environment “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” (Shirley Jackson 1) by those words, the readers think that the journey is a special day, or at least a normal journal as it used to be. The fact that Mrs. Hutchinson went late to the even because she “clean forgot what day it was” (4) and the fact that she “…looked out the looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running." (4) Keep the reader in a way that the lottery is something important that anyone would not want to miss. The process of the lottery is ironic because everyone must be there not for having the same opportunity to win a prize, but to be drawn at random to be stoned. How Mrs. Hutchinson who comes late at the lottery could said “You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!”(8) When her husband is chosen is ironic. However, Mr. Summers accepts ironically; to restart the process of random