During my childhood, often times whenever I got into trouble I would try to shift the blame to one of my siblings by saying, “But they told me to do it...” and my mother would always reply, “If he told you jump off a bridge would you?” Of course I wouldn’t have; but she was proving her point, which was I had the free will to choose whether I wanted to obey to my sibling or not. I choose to obey and now would have to be held accountable for my actions. Depending on the situation, sometimes we need to obey; however, sometimes we need to rebel. American author, Shirley Jackson, is known for her fictional mystery and horror works. Her most famous piece is a short story, “The Lottery.” In this story a small village holds a lottery and one unfortunate individual ends up with a slip of paper with a black spot on it. This person is then stoned to death. In reality, the lottery is a horrible ritual believed to be necessary sacrifice for the village to have a bountiful crop that year. When a man mentions how some surrounding villages have abolished the sacrifice and more are contemplating the idea Old Man Warner replies, “Pack of crazy fools...Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ There’s always been a lottery.” (229). Old Man Warner also said this was his 77th lottery. Obviously this ritual had been done for many years; nonetheless this is a horrible tradition and the village shouldn’t mindlessly follow their ancestors. In this case, it would be morally right to rebel and revolt against this abominable sacrifice. Although, if you are going to rebel you must be bold and courageous, also you must be prepared for the possibility of losing something important to you. We have an example of thi... ... middle of paper ... ...ot just blindly following someone else’s leadership. Obedience is making the decision to comply with a request. Furthermore, rebellion is not always a bad thing; occasionally to do the right thing we must rebel. In life, circumstances occur that require us to determine whether we are going to obey the authority over us or if we will rebel against it. Works Cited Heaney, Seamus. “Digging.” (Handout) Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Connections: Literature for Composition. Ed. Miller, Quentin and Nash, Julie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. (225-32) Ovid. “Metamorphoses.” Connections: Literature for Composition. Ed. Miller, Quentin and Nash, Julie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. (393-95) Updike, John. “A & P.” Connections: Literature for Composition. Ed. Miller, Quentin and Nash, Julie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. (243-49)
In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, Jackson illustrates an average agricultural town that usually wouldn’t be given a second thought, but in this case the innocent appearance is holding a dark secret. Every year in the summer an annual tradition is held known as the lottery. The lottery is held in the small town in order to have a bountiful harvest. All the towns’ people gather and each head of the families must reach into an old black box to grab a white slip of paper. The lottery is then narrowed down to one family once all the white slips of paper are opened. The individual who is possession of a white slip of paper with a black dot has their family each reach into the box and grab a slip of paper of their own. Unfortunately the family member who has the slip of paper with the black dot is sacrificed in order to receive a good season of crops.
Typically, when someone thinks of a lottery they think of something positive and exciting but contrary to this idea in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the connotation has an entirely different meaning. As the story begins, readers lean towards the belief that the town in which Jackson depicts is filled with happiness and joy. “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” (Jackson 247) We soon realize that this notion is far from the truth. As the townspeople gather in the square for the annual lottery, which sole purpose is to stone someone to death by randomly pulling a paper out of a black box with a black dot on it, it is learned
Disobedience may lead to some struggles before you get what you want, or you may not even get your desired outcome at all even though it’s your best option. This is evident when Lysander says to Hermia,“Hang off, thou cat, thou burr, let loose or I will shake thee from me like a serpent” (3.2.266-267). This principle is also apparent when Puck, a fairy says to Oberon, “When in that moment, so it came to pass, Titania waked, and straightaway fell in love with an ass” (3.2.34-35). In both scenarios, disloyalty led to hardships. Hermia suffered heartbreak when Lysander was under a love potion and became deeply attracted to another woman. Additionally, Titania’s disobedience to Oberon caused Oberon to become furious and seek revenge on Titania by making her fall in love with a donkey, and then he stole her child. As you can see, there are harsh punishments for disloyalty even if it's your only option
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a chilling tale of a harsh ritualistic gathering conducted by people of a small village. The word lottery would typically remind someone of a drawing to win a cash prize. A better comparison to the story would be the lottery used to select troops for the Vietnam War; a lottery of death. Another would be the human sacrifices the Aztecs willingly made long ago.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. 4th ed. Boston: Longman, 2012. 643-54. Print.
Obedience is when you do something you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority. As little kids we are taught to follow the rules of authority, weather it is a positive or negative effect. Stanley Milgram, the author of “The perils of Obedience” writes his experiment about how people follow the direction of an authority figure, and how it could be a threat. On the other hand Diana Baumrind article “Review of Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience,” is about how Milgram’s experiment was inhumane and how it is not valid. While both authors address how people obey an authority figure, Milgram focuses more on how his experiment was successful while Baumrind seems more concerned more with how Milgram’s experiment was flawed and
Obedience is a factor that is caused by an authority figure making unethical decisions or demands, and others follow his or her orders because they are an authority
What thoughts come to mind when you think of "The Lottery?" Positive thoughts including money, a new home, excitement, and happiness are all associated with the lottery in most cases. However, this is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s short story, "The Lottery." Here, the characters in the story are not gambling for money, instead they are gambling for their life. A shock that surprises the reader as she unveils this horrifying tradition in the village on this beautiful summer day. This gamble for their life is a result of tradition, a tradition that is cruel and inhumane, yet upheld in this town. Shirley Jackson provides the reader’s with a graphic description of violence, cruelty, and inhumane treatment which leads to the unexpected meaning of "The Lottery." Born in San Francisco, Jackson began writing early in her life. She won a poetry prize at age twelve and continued writing through high school. In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. After marriage to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a notable literary critic, she continued to write. Her first national publication “My Life with R.H. Macy” was published in The New Republic in 1941but her best-known work is “The Lottery.”(Lit Links or Reagan). Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to portray a story with rising action that surprises the reader with the unexpected odd ritual in the village. While one would expect “The Lottery” to be a positive event, the reader’s are surprised with a ritual that has been around for seventy-seven years , demonstrating how unwilling people are to make changes in their everyday life despite the unjust and cruel treatment that is associated with this tradi...
In “The Lottery”, Jackson wrote about a special tradition of a small village. June 27th was warm and sunny, and it gave the impression like nothing could possibly go wrong. Everyone knows the lottery as an exciting thing, and everybody wants to win, but this lottery is unlike any other. This lottery was actually the tradition of stoning of an innocent villager; that year it was Tessie Hutchinson. Though the horrific ending was not expected, throughout the story Jackson gave subtle hints that this was not an average lottery. Jackson foreshadowed the death of Tessie Hutchinson with stones, the black box, and the three legged stool; she showed that unquestioning support of tradition can be fatal.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Gioia, Dana and R.S. Gwynn. The Art of the Short Story. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006. 390-396.
Authority cannot exist without obedience. Society is built on this small, but important concept. Without authority and its required obedience, there would only be anarchy and chaos. But how much is too much, or too little? There is a fine line between following blindly and irrational refusal to obey those in a meaningful position of authority. Obedience to authority is a real and powerful force that should be understood and respected in order to handle each situation in the best possible manner.
Set in 1948 and published in The New Yorker, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson describes a village ritual of sacrifice. Contrary to the positive feeling associated with the word “lottery,” the story strikes fear into the readers’ hearts as the winner is stoned to death. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” uses symbolism and genre conventions of a classic dystopian story to show the different ways in which human cruelty can occur.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 989.
First, people given commands to carry out any destructive obedience can be reminded that their actions can will ultimately result in that individual taking responsibility, not the one that gave the order. By doing so, this may trigger an acknowledgement of responsibility for his or her own action. Second, when you remind individuals that at some point, total obedience is wrong, some might detour from such behavior. By providing there is an example of people who disobeyed order, you can prime their thoughts into thinking of less destructive obedience. Third, individuals may find it easy to resist or go against those in positions of authority if they can find a way to question the intelligence, expertise and motives or the people in power. Question that can arise with these kind of thoughts can be “are those in these powerful positions suitable to make judgement for or against others?” When people question or tend to doubt the motive of a dictator, they find it easy to combat. Finally, “simply knowing about the power of authority figures to command blind obedience may be helpful in itself” (Baron & Branscombe, 2012). Once individuals witness the causes and effects of their action, they tend to change their behavior and often oppose those place in authoritative positions. There is hope that by some people noticing the harm that is done by engaging in such destructive obedience, there is a chance they an
In our society disobedience is part of our everyday life sometimes we don't know we disobey, but we do ,disobedience is not always a bad thing because when you are working hard for something you really want and then comes one person that doesn't let you or want you to succeed you just got to disobey that person when they tell you need to do something but when they tell you that it's not to help you it's just for them to see you not succeed.