More handpicked essays just for you.
The role of community to an individual
How the concept of community is complicated
Community vs individualism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson, is a short story that was first published in 1948. In this case, I am referencing Backpack Literature. There are a couple of themes in this short story. The risk of indiscriminately following tradition is one and the haphazardness of murder is another. I am going to talk about how these themes relate to the story.
To start off, this story is an example of how following traditions indiscriminately can be a huge risk. People follow what they think is right just because they want to keep the tradition going. They don’t question whether what they are doing is right or wrong. Nor, do they stop to think what the consequences of following such peculiar traditions will be. They simply follow what has been continued year after year as if it is their duty to perform it.
The story begins with people getting together in the town’s square on the morning of June 27th. The people in the town were used to the tradition of doing “The Lottery” each and every year.
…show more content…
The Lottery is the annual tradition in which one person from the town is chosen to be murdered. The way in which this person is chosen is through a random picking of their name out of a black box. The chosen person will then be pelted with stones until they die. The lottery in this small town begins at 10:00 A.M. and takes less than two hours; therefore, the town’s people would be home by lunch time. The children were the first to start collecting the stones to later be used to kill the winner of the lottery.
“Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example … [others] eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys” (qtd. in Jackson 259). This shows the reader that the young boys are used to the tradition by now and follow along. The other boys that followed Bobby didn’t even bother to ask why they were gathering rocks or why they were going to throw them at the winner and kill them; they just went with the flow of the tradition. The adults in the story feared changing tradition, as was evidenced by their unwillingness to make a new black box for the lottery. The town members are so wrapped up in the tradition that they turn their backs on the victim and are willing to kill their own neighbor/friend just to keep up with the
tradition. In addition to the risk of indiscriminately following tradition, the haphazardness of murder is another theme in The Lottery. The name that is chosen out of the black box is so random, that even children or relatives of previous winners could be chosen as the winner of the lottery. The winner may have never done anything wrong, but just chose the paper with the black dot on it. Murder can be so random that people will, on one day of the year, kill someone they know just so they follow tradition. People will kill innocent people at random just to follow the tradition. In conclusion, there are a couple of themes in the story The Lottery. The risk of indiscriminately following tradition is one and the haphazardness of murder is another.
Shirley Jackson wrote many books in her life, but she was well known by people for her story “The Lottery” (Hicks). “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948, in the New Yorker magazine (Schilb). The story sets in the morning of June 27th in a small town. The townspeople gather in the square to conduct their annual tradition, the Lottery. The winner of the lottery will stoned to death by the society. Although there is no main character in the story, the story develops within other important elements. There are some important elements of the story that develop the theme of the story: narrator and its point of view, symbolism, and main conflict. The story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, argues practicing a tradition without understanding the meaning of the practice is meaningless and dangerous.
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the theme of the story is dramatically illustrated by Jackson’s unique tone. Once a year the villagers gather together in the central square for the lottery. The villagers await the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black box. Within the black box are folded slips of paper, one piece having a black dot on it. All the villagers then draw a piece of paper out of the box. Whoever gets the paper with the black dot wins. Tessie Hutchinson wins the lottery! Everyone then closes in on her and stones her to death. Tessie Hutchinson believes it is not fair because she was picked. The villagers do not know why the lottery continues to exist. All they know is that it is a tradition they are not willing to abandon. In “The Lottery,” Jackson portrays three main themes including tradition, treason, and violence.
"The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice. The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens. On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate. Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice. Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about. Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective use of foreshadowing through the depiction of characters and setting. Effective foreshadowing builds anticipation for the climax and ultimately the main theme of the story - the pointless nature of humanity regarding tradition and cruelty.
There are two exceptional evidences to reinforce this: the children are given the task to collect all the rocks and place them all in the center for the stoning ceremony, and the fact that Old Man Wagner has been attending this annual event for at least seventy-seven years; thus, revealing the certainty that this tradition has been indeed passed on from the old generation to the next one. To demonstrate, Old Man Warner clearly noted in the background that things are “not the way it used to be” and that “people ain’t the way they used to be” (Jackson 6). Given this point, it is obvious that the lottery ritual has not been always around, but rather introduced when Old Man Warner was a child. With this in mind, there is one possible way in order to abolish this barbaric tradition: the lottery must be terminated in the next generation. The action of one person can end this all by burning the black box and leaving behind an inspirational legacy which could mark the end of the lottery. In final words, “The Lottery” exemplifies that certain customs can be crucially harmful to mankind; therefore, they ought to be eradicated as a beneficial contribution to society and
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.
Hutchinson has the marked paper, “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand.” This quote shows how tradition and the perceived power of others can form boundaries more powerful than love. In this case tradition caused a man to stand against his own wife. This also demonstrates how tradition is often accepted, and the majority of people are afraid to stand up for what is right, no matter how closely they are affected
The townspeople seem to have mixed emotions about the lottery; they fear it yet on a very barbaric level they enjoy it. By standing "away from the pile of stones," and keeping their distance from the black box, the villagers show their fear of the lottery (Jackson 863). However, once they find out who is going to be stoned, Tessie Hutchinson, they seem to actually enjoy the stoning. One villager picks up a stone so big she can barely carry it; someone even gives Tessie’s youngest son a few pebbles to throw at his mother. Their overall attitude about the stoning is summed up by the phrase "and then they were...
In "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson, there are a series of traditions the story revolves around. The characters in the story don't seem to follow their traditions anymore. The story begins by explaining how the lottery works. The lottery takes place in many other towns. In this town it takes place on June 27 of every year. Everyone within town would gather at the town square, no matter what age. The black box is brought out and each head of the household pulls a small paper out of it. Only one of the papers will not be blank, it will have a black-penciled spot that is put on by the owner of the coal company. The black spot will send someone, from the family who chose it, to death. This is decided by a draw. The family member who pulls out the spotted paper will be stoned to death. After a long period of time, people forget the traditions by slowly disregarding as the years pass.
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.
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...
“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson about a small village that does a lottery that has a bad ending. The story first starts out with all the people waiting by the bank and the post office for The Lottery to start. Once the lottery starts all families must go to the box and select a slip of paper for your family, the Hutchinsons won and had to select another piece of paper for each family member. Tessie Hutchinson picked the slip of paper with the black dot, which meant that she was going to get stone by the rest of the villagers. The topic and theme of the story is that tradition is not enough of a reason to bring harm to someone. Jackson uses tone, situational irony, and symbolism to emphasize the theme of the story.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was written in 1948. The story takes place in a village square of a town on June 27th. The author does not use much emotion in the writing to show how the barbaric act that is going on is look at as normal. This story is about a town that has a lottery once a year to choose who should be sacrificed, so that the town will have a plentiful year for growing crops. Jackson has many messages about human nature in this short story. The most important message she conveys is how cruel and violent people can be to one another. Another very significant message she conveys is how custom and tradition can hold great power over people. Jackson also conveys the message of how men treat women as objects.
However, in reality this is not an ordinary lottery where the expected prize is money, they are gathered together to execute unjustly the unlucky lottery winner out of an old tradition by throwing stones at him or her regardless age. In this story
"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson that was published in 1948 and gave a good example of the definition of the term sociological theory. This theory is a set of ideas on how people behave and how institutions operate. The analysis of this short story and the of the work of Emile Durkheim shows the relationship of the two in the field of Sociology. There are many well defined intertwining theories that Durkheim gave to society that are also included in "The Lottery". Solidarity is the theory that will be analyzed.
Thesis: Shirley Jackson’s usage of irony, characters, and plot portray the stories theme of the dangers of unconsciously following tradition.