Rituals
There are rituals that we practice year after year, but forget where they came from. Sometimes we continue to practice these rituals even after we have lost the meaning of why they are practiced. In the story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, the practice of a yearly ritual changes the lives of all the people who participate. Jackson's story reveals a horrific ritual in which one person is sacrificed by being stoned to death in order to have a better crop season. Jackson uses symbolic objects to represent the villagers' closed-minded beliefs and their acceptance of rituals.
The controlling symbol in the story is a black wooden box. The box symbolizes death, and it holds the fate of one person within it. Even though, "the black box grew shabbier each year ... no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained" (75). With time, the original meaning of the tradition had faded just as the box had. Even though the meaning had faded, when Mr. Adams hinted at stopping the lottery by saying, "over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery," Old Man Warner called them a "pack of crazy fools" (77). He also said, "They're listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them," and "There's always been a lottery" (77). Soon afterward Mrs. Adams said, "Some places have already quit lotteries" (77). Old man Warner replied, "Nothing but trouble in that," and "Pack of young fools" (77). Insinuating that only young people wanted to do away with the lottery. It seems as though Old Man Warner is responsible for keeping the lottery going. Although the use of "slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for ...
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...and the pieces of paper represent the blackness and evilness in the villagers heart. While the stones represent the villager's coldness and stubbornness to change. When people willing continue to practice a ritual that has lost its significance, they convey a message to their children that it is ok to kill someone instead of speaking out for what is right. In the story, we see that the children are already falling in the footsteps of their parents. Rituals are practiced in every society, they help us understand where we came from and how our ancestors lived, however; there are some rituals that are better left forgotten.
Word Count: 800
Bibliography:
Work Cited
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan,
Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1999. 74-79.
2nd ed. of the book. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 1995.
of the book. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006. Fitzgerald, F. Scott.
Third Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2005.
Throughout the course of humanity, people have sought ways to promote a society where moral unification and motivation are present. It is essential for a community to coincide with such values; therefore, tradition and folklore are transcended though generations as customs which people follow mostly without question. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, such traditions are exploited through a futile box along with a brutal ritual which symbolizes the way a society might mindlessly abide by them and feel powerless to divert from such illogical acts. The storyline contains a constant tone which depicts normalcy to present normalcy itself as seen by the villagers, yet whispers eerie to the reader by setting up hints and indications of what is really occurring.
The stones in this story can represent and symbolize something that is heartless, hard, and has no emotion such as the people of their society. Even the little children of the society are “brain washed” by the tradition of the lottery
The story leads to a horrific ending, with people forgetting the concept of ritual. When people think of a lottery, they draw an image with a big amount of money in their head. However, in the story “The Lottery”, the price is death. It starts in the morning of a bright, peaceful day, people are gathering in the square, children picking stones and piles them; also the black box used for drawing, “the original paraphernalia for the lottery had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born.” (Jackson 205).
Kennedy, X. J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron, eds. The Bedford Reader. 11th ed.
“The Lottery” has many elements involved in it, and all of them shape the story into what it truly is. Without the heavy symbolism of the black box, the three-legged stool, and the stones, the short story would lack depth. Without the many themes of society and class, tradition and customs, hypocrisy, and family, the story would lack all of its deeper meanings. Within “The Lottery”, the two most important elements of fiction are theme and symbolism, and it is hard to imagine the story any other way.
The lottery consists of a black box full of blanks pieces of paper and one marked piece of paper. The person who draws the marked piece of paper is the one who endures the horrible fate of being stoned. This black box is very significant because it an s symbol of tradition. Just like tradition, it has been used for many years. Because it symbol in this story is the black box, which is used in the lottery process. . The box is a symbol of tradition and just like tradition; it has been used for many years. “ There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village.” It is old and needs to be replaced with a new one but none ...
Ed. George McMichael. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000. 697-771. Davis, Sara de Saussure, p. 84.
Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is a short story about the annual gathering of the villagers to conduct an ancient ritual. The ritual ends in the stoning of one of the residents of this small village. This murder functions under the guise of a sacrament that, at one time, served the purpose of ensuring a bountiful harvest. This original meaning, however, is lost over the years and generations of villagers. The loss of meaning has changed the nature and overall purpose of the lottery. This ritual is no longer a humble sacrifice that serves the purpose of securing the harvest but instead is a ceremony of violence and murder only existing for the pleasure found in this violence.
Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. 10th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008.610-612. Print.
Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2003. 600-605.
Witchcraft is the art or power of bringing magical or preternatural power to bear or the act or practice of attempting to do so. People who practice witchcraft are known as witches. Witchcraft along with other supernatural phenomena has become a big part of pop culture. Movies, television shows, and books such as the Harry Potter franchise, Charmed, The Wizard of Oz, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch all contain witches. Witches have moved from something that was so feared that they prompted the infamous witch-hunts, to a source of entertainment and a popular Halloween costume. The belief in the practice of magic has been around for a long time. Witchcraft is an alternative belief system and although witches are no longer being burned at the stake, there is still a huge prejudice against witches. This paper will be an investigation into the exceptional witches of the past and present, important historical events and practices of witchcraft.
of the book. Eds. James H. Pickering and Jeffery D. Hoeper. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1027-28. Mullen, Edward J. & Co.