Literary Elements In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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Shirley Jackson uses various literary elements such as extended metaphors, vivid imagery, and ironic scenes to provide essential insights as to why traditional values are held on the highest pedestal in the village. In “The Lottery,” Jackson demonstrates traditional beliefs, that are held solely because of tradition itself, are destructive to society, as illustrated through the stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson, the winner of the lottery.
Directly in the beginning, Jackson paints a descriptive, utopia-like village, where “the flowers were blossoming profusely, and the grass was richly green.” This powerful use of imagery provides the starting point for the fabrication of an ideal village with perfect, traditional families. Next, as people gather and converse in the …show more content…

As described, the box from which the lottery is played has been used so heavily, repairs were frequent. Moreover, “the black box had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born,” extensively illustrating how ancient and important this ritual is. The lottery itself consists of the men of the family stepping forward and randomly selecting a slip of paper from the black box. Continuing, the man who draws the slip with a black dot then has his entire family at stake. The whole family must reselect from the black box at random, and whoever selects the slip with the black dot again is stoned to death. Because this process is completely random, it symbolizes the random persecution in society due to tradition. After the Hutchinson family is chose, Mrs. Hutchinson is ultimately chosen to be stoned. She then insists that “this is not fair! This is not right!” because she was randomly selected. Therefore, the lottery is a metaphor for the random persecution in society that is inevitably unfair, which directly relates to the theme by having the village people stick to tradition, with no regard to the violence it

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