Essay On Symbolism In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Many authors use a special literary technique called symbolism, which is defined as the use of a symbol to represent an idea or a quality. Short story authors do this a lot within their stories to show a hidden meaning to the shocking ending. In the story The Lottery, author Shirley Jackson uses symbolism throughout the entire story to show and not tell the readers of the story what is going to happen in the end. The story begins with the narrator describing the children of the town collecting large rocks and putting them into piles. Author Shirley Jackson describes this scene in the following quote: “....Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of other boys” (Jackson, 1948 par. 2). This comes off as sort of an odd hobby for children to do, but readers later find that the children collecting the rocks is actually a symbol for the weapons that were going to be used at the end of the story. These rocks can also come a symbol of death being that the characters ultimately die by these same rocks if they win the lottery. Some people also interrupt the stones to be the “ballots” of the townsfolk and when they throw them at the person it is them casting their “ballots” to continue the lottery. A black box is then brought out containing white slips of paper that end up determining the town's people's fates. The color black is a common color that represents death and the white slips can be interrupted as all of the townspeople being equal within the lottery. Many of the characters fear the black box in the story the author writes “The

Although symbolism may be more prominent in other stories such as The Lottery by Shirley Jackson it still plays a very important role in literary work. Shirley Jackson is one author who has indeed mastered the art of