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Jackson’s The Lottery Imagine year after year being forced to participate in an event that you did not accept all. You are doing it because everyone else is, because it is tradition. This is exactly what happens in “The Lottery”. The purpose of this essay is to explain the literary elements of this short story. Also I will explain how similar it is the famous “Hunger Games”. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is far from boring. It starts off at what seems to be a nice, sunny, summer day and families are in the time square. First, we see that children are playing, picking up stones and collecting them, putting them in piles. Then we see the men looking about and talking among themselves and women coming along to stand with husbands. By this …show more content…
They both held annual drawings that choose people for a ritual. The districts of The Hunger Games called it a "reaping" which chose two people to fight for their district having a great chance of being killed. "The Lottery" held a "lottery" which first drawn families then draws a person from that family to certainly be killed. First, the fear that was instilled in the people. In The Hunger Games, the people of the districts feared speaking out against President Snow because of the consequences they would face. While in The Lottery, the villagers were also very fearful of being condemned if they were to express opposing views.(Yarmove, 1994) Next is the free will of the two stories. There was no freedom at all in the way of living in The Hunger Games they had no say so in their lives. In The Lottery the villagers were pretty free living except when it came to the lottery itself, there was no way of getting out of that situation. Since the characters in both stories did not have free will, the conformed to the ways of the law. In The Hunger Games, there were strict rules to abide by, it was follow or die. No one would speak out against President Snow because of fear. In The Lottery, all villagers followed the routine of that day the people do not speak out just accept what it to be. Now in both stories, there are people in each story who finally speak out but for different …show more content…
Though it ended abruptly, it was full of symbolism, irony and plot twists. I am sure many people of her time found the story inappropriate. Shirley Jackson showed many people how cruel humans can be and how blind we are when it comes to traditions. In this short story, you see fear, lack of free will, conformity, and the will to
The narrator of the story and its point of view are important to understand the theme of the story. Jackson does not mention who is the narrator of the story, but it seems the narrator is a woman who is Jackson herself, and she is part of the society because she knows the townspeople’s character and the event that happens in the town. Although the narrator is part of the society, she seems to be a trustworthy narrator. She tells the story in third point of view with an objective omniscience. She does not bias to any character and describes the story based on what she sees. The point of view in the story is important because it leads the reader to think the reason why the townspeople conduct such a horrible tradition which is one part of the theme of the story. The theme might change if the narrator tells the story in different point of view because she will not tell the story in objective view.
Jackson, Shirley.. "The Lottery." Trans. Array Literature, An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. . Seventh. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2013. 250-256. Print.
In the plot, Jackson foreshadows the horror which is due to come. The children are taught from a young age about the process which takes place for the death of a person, they prepare for this event by collecting “a great pile of stones” which is used later on in the persecution of Mrs. Hutchinson (1 Jackson). This illustrates that children have been indoctrinated to think that the death of a human is unimportant, and considered normal. They look at this event as a game instead of a serious
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson opens on a warm June day in unnamed village where people are waiting for the annual event which is the lottery. This ‘tradition’ is also held in other surrounding towns for a long time. Everyone in the town, including the children, participates in this event, yet not all of them are satisfied about it. Meanwhile some people show their dissatisfaction, yet they are unable to criticize this act directly. During the process of the lottery, which does not take more than couple of hours, some of the characters such as Mrs. Dunbar , Mr. and Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Hutchinson question the lottery, yet they are not voicing their protest clearly. This vagueness in showing dissatisfaction is related to the idea that most of the people in the town are accepting this ‘outdated’ trad...
Though many societies are different from each other in appearance, they have more aspects in common than some may expect. This is very true in the societies in the movie, The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross, and the short story, “The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson. The Hunger Games is about the struggle of a young woman who is trying to survive a deadly competition between multiple people drawn and nominated to fight to the death for sport due to a failed revolt against the government. “The Lottery” is a story about how families are picked at random with one member getting stoned to death and how a young woman decides to stand up to her society. Both The Hunger Games and “The Lottery” have many similarities in regards to tradition
“The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, is a provoking piece of literature about a town that continues a tradition of stoning, despite not know why the ritual started in the first place. As Jackson sets the scene, the villagers seem ordinary; but seeing that winning the lottery is fatal, the villagers are then viewed as murders by the reader. Disagreeing with the results of the lottery, Tessie Hutchinson is exposed to an external conflict between herself and the town. Annually on June 27th, the villagers gather to participate in the lottery. Every head of household, archetypally male, draws for the fate of their family, but Tessie protests as she receives her prize of a stoning after winning the lottery. Jackson uses different symbols – symbolic characters, symbolic acts, and allegories – to develop a central theme: the
1) The tone, mood or atmosphere in the story begins with that of happiness and euphoria, by setting us up with a wonderful day that most everyone would enjoy.
Written by Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” is a short story about a town that hosts an annual lottery that decides which person is stoned by the rest of the town. Jackson slowly and subtly builds the suspense throughout the story, only resolving the mystery surrounding the lottery at the very last moment, as the townspeople surround Tessie with their stones. The symbolism utilized helps demonstrate the overall significance of the story, such as the lottery itself. The lottery shows the way people desperately cling to old traditions, regardless of how damaging they may be. In addition, it can show how callous many will act while staring at a gruesome situation, until they become the victims. Jackson’s story presents the issue regarding the habit
Winning vast amounts of money can make anyone slaphappy, but unfortunately this type of wager won’t be discussed in Shirley Jacksons “The Lottery.” Jackson catches the reader’s attention by describing a typical day by using words such as “blossoming, clear and sunny skies” to attract the reader into believing a calm and hopeful setting which eventually turns dark. In this short story Jackson tells a tale of a sinister and malevolent town in America that conforms to the treacherous acts of murder in order to keep their annual harvest tradition alive. Jackson exposes the monstrosity of people within this society in this chilling tale. She allows the reader’s to ponder and lead them to believe that the lottery is actually a good thing; till she implements foreshadowing, to hint at the dreadfulness behind the lottery and its meaning. My goal in this paper is to discuss why Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a portrayed as a horror story, and the importance the townspeople used to glorify ritualistic killings, to appease to an unseeable force in return of good harvest for the upcoming year.
The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a community that has a yearly lottery pull. The short story is set in a small town that is seemingly normal at first. Every year the town has a lottery pull, in which one person is chosen at random, to be stoned to death by all of their fellow townsmen. The lottery is a tradition that was started many years ago, and is kept alive by the current residents. By using symbolism, irony, and setting Jackson shows the true darkness within the entirety of the human race.
Though it ended abruptly, it was full of symbolism, irony and plot twists. I am sure many people of her time found the story inappropriate. Shirley Jackson showed many people how cruel humans can be and how blind we are when it comes to traditions. In this short story you see fear, lack of free will, conformity and the will to
In "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson fills her story with many literary elements to mask the evil. The story demonstrates how it is in human nature to blindly follow traditions. Even if the people have no idea why they follow.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Gardner, Janet E.; Lawn, Beverly; Ridl, Jack; Schakel, Pepter. 3rd Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 242-249. Print.
Both stories illustrate the consequences of blindly following traditions. In The Hunger Games, the story is based on twenty-four youth tributes from various districts being chosen to compete in the games. They are forced to kill one another while people from their districts watch in horror. The people that lived in these districts feared of being chosen to participate in the annual Hunger Games. The Capitol residents watch the traditional hunger games as entertainment. If people decide to bell against the Treaty of Treason, created by the Capitol, they would be executed in front of their district or the entire country of Panel. Likewise the villagers in “The Lottery” also lived in fear that one day they would be chosen to be stoned to death. In “The Lottery” citizens came together every year to participate in the lottery. Families are drawn and whichever family member picks out the piece of paper with a black dot, will get
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th Ed. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Book.