More handpicked essays just for you.
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” essay analysis
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” essay analysis
Themes for the lottery by Shirley Jackson
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Shirley Jacksons short story “The Lottery” is bout traditions and sacrifice. The people of their village followed the tradition even though they had to sacrifice greatly for them. In the story the village people all gathered for a lottery but if you got it someone in your family would die for the tradition but it blessed the crops. Traditions can be good or bad. Some traditions harm people. Some people sacrifice themselves to keep their traditions or religions alive. For example in the story Tessie got stoned to supposedly bless the crops because that’s what they believed in.in some religions they have extremists that harm people who don’t agree with them on their beliefs or traditions. Traditions can bring people together. In some traditions
Attention Getter: Shirley Jacksons, The Lottery, without a doubt expresses her thoughts regarding traditional rituals throughout her story. It opens the eyes of us readers to suitably organize and question some of the today's traditions as malicious and it allows foretelling the conclusion of these odd traditions. The Lottery is a short story that records the annual sacrifice ceremony of an unreal small town. It is a comprehensive story of the selection of the person to be sacrificed, a procedure known to the villagers as the lottery. This selection is enormously rich in symbolism.
“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the theme that blindly following traditions is dangerous in her short story “The Lottery” through the use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony.
“The Lottery” is a short story about an event that takes place every year in a small village of New England. When the author speaks of “the lottery” he is referencing the lottery of death; this is when the stoning of a village member must give up his or her life. The villagers gather at a designated area and perform a customary ritual which has been practiced for many years. The Lottery is a short story about a tradition that the villagers are fully loyal to and represents a behavior or idea that has been passed down from generation to generation, accepting and following a rule no matter how cruel or illogical it is. Friends and family become insignificant the moment it is time to stone the unlucky victim.
Americans day after day live much of their lives following time-honored traditions that are passed down from one generation to another. From simple everyday cooking and raising children, to holidays and other family rituals, tradition plays a significant role on how they go by there everyday lives. In Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," the citizens of a small farming town follow one such tradition. A point is made regarding human nature in relation to tradition. The story begins on a beautiful summer afternoon. The town's citizens are eager, gathering in the town square in order to take part in the yearly lottery. With the story focused around one particular family, the Hutchinsons, who are so anxious to get it all over with until they find that one of their members is to participate in the lottery's closing festivities, Tessie. Of course unlike your typical lotteries, this is not one that you would want to win. The one chosen from the lottery is to undertake a cruel and unusual death by stoning at the hands of their fellow townsmen for the sake that it may bring a fruitful crop for the coming harvest season. Ironically, many of the towns people have suggested that the lottery be put to an end, but most find the idea unheard of being that they have lived in it's practice for most of their lives. The story conveys a message that traditions may be valued so highly that those in their practice may do everything they can to ensure that they continue in accordance. From this a question arises. How far would one go to ensure their sacred traditions remain unscathed?
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.
Everyone has their own way of solving problems; however, ritual is a form that people doing one thing in the same way. It defines as “the prescribed form of conducting a formal secular ceremony.” However if the meaning of ritual is mistaken, the consequence could be unpredictable." The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson gives us a lecture about a tortuous ritual. The story takes place in a small village with 300 citizens, they gather for a yearly lottery which everyone should participate. The story leads to a horrific ending by people forgetting the concept of ritual.
Through my research and findings of obedience to authority this ancient dilemma is somewhat confusing but needs understanding. Problem with obedience to authority has raised a question to why people obey or disobey and if there are any right time to obey or not to obey. Through observation of many standpoints on obedience and disobedience to authority, and determined through detailed examination conducted by Milgram “The Perils Of Obedience,” Doris Lessing “Group Minds” and Shirley Jackson “The Lottery”. We have to examine this information in hopes of understanding or at least be able to draw our own theories that can be supported and proven on this subject.
Would you kill someone for food? In the story, The Lottery, Shirley Jackson tells of a small village that holds a lottery and stones the winner to death in order to have a healthy and plentiful crops. The story has a disturbing ending. Due to the villagers kill the mother of a family without knowing what life would be without her. Not all the people are not all enthusiastic about the sacrifice and many begin to desire not to continue the lottery.
Tradition is a central theme in Shirley Jackon's short story The Lottery. Images such as the black box and characters such as Old Man Warner, Mrs. Adams, and Mrs. Hutchinson display to the reader not only the tenacity with which the townspeople cling to the tradition of the lottery, but also the wavering support of it by others. In just a few pages, Jackson manages to examine the sometimes long forgotten purpose of rituals, as well as the inevitable questioning of the necessity for such customs.
Throughout history, people have developed traditions in order to build customs and social norms acceptable in their own civilization. In the short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson talks about a village that has a tradition of sacrificing people every year. The author, throughout the passage, gives indirect hints as to what the lottery was used for. Mr. Bill, the man responsible for the lottery, ends up picking a women by the name of Tessie Hutchinson from the box and she ends up getting stoned by by the children. The setting for this sort of tradition takes place in the 1930s and 1940s in village around the U.S. Shirley Jackson chooses such a setting for her story because she wants to show how the village is small and centralized , and what Jackson wants to portray
The short story “ The Lottery ” the author Shirley Jackson uses symbolism and imagery to develop a theme the brings forth the evil and inhumane nature of tradition and the danger of when it’s carried out with ignorance.
Human sacrifice is viewed today as unethical and malicious— unfortunately, it has been a part of history for thousands of years and continues to occur in some isolated regions. Lives were exchanged for the benefit of others through ritualistic ceremonies around the world. Whether or not the people were victims, or if they had surrendered themselves to supernatural powers is explored in the article “The Practices of Human Sacrifice” by Dr Mike Parker-Pearson. Similarly, in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the gruesome details of human sacrifice are revealed through a tale about villagers that partake in an annual stoning of the individual that chooses a black-dotted paper to ensure plentiful crops. The sacrifices that are now reprehensible crimes were valued because of the prosperity they brought, to ensure the gods were appeased and to continue a tradition.
In the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson written in 1948, the cultural beliefs of the townspeople are very different from the views of the people today. In the story the townspeople talk about making a sacrifice every year on June 27th. The event is called the lottery, and everyone chooses a small piece of paper to see who gets elected for the sacrifice. The head of the house has the authority by choosing the piece of paper for their family. If the small piece of paper contains a black dot, then that family is chosen. Then all the family members choose again. Whichever family gets the black dot, will be stoned to death. The sacrifice is for the harvest to help produce a good harvest, and better crops. The townspeople believe
Tradition is huge in small towns and families and allows for unity through shared values, stories, and goals from one generation to the next. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” carries that theme of tradition. The story follows a small town that performs the tradition of holding an annual lottery in which the winner gets stoned to death. It (tradition) is valued amongst human societies around the world, but the refusal of the villagers in “The Lottery” to let go of a terrifying long-lasting tradition suggests the negative consequences of blindly following these traditions such as violence and hypocrisy.
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.