Selfishness In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'

569 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of Shirley Jackson the Lottery

I. Introduction a. “‘It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,’ Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” (Jackson 5) b. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the residents of a small town have a drawing every year on the 27th of June. However, no one wants to “win” this lottery because the “prize” is being stoned to death by your friends, neighbors, and even your own family. c. Selfishness is strong enough to overtake even values as important as family. d. essay map i. Tessie Hutchinson didn’t care about what happened to her family at all, she only cared about what happened to herself. II. Point 1 a. Tessie Hutchinson was so consumed by her selfishness, that she didn’t even think about trying to protect her family from being stoned to death, instead, she actually volunteered them. b. i. Mrs. Hutchinson let her personal feelings overtake her family values. When she realizes that someone from her family will be stoned to death, she immediately …show more content…

She starts worrying, not about who in her family might die, but about the possibility of her dying. Rather than trying to save her young children from death, she volunteers her oldest daughter to be killed. “‘There’s Don and Eva,’ Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. ‘Make them take their chance!’” (Jackson 4) The Hutchinson’s don’t have strong family values. Even if they sit down to noon dinner together, that doesn’t mean they really care about each other. If they cared about each other they wouldn’t be standing apart from each other in their “assigned spots” during the lottery, they would be standing close together, maybe even talking about the drawing. If they really cared about each other, there would be no male dominance in the family, everyone would be treated equally. If Tessie Hutchinson really cared about her family, she wouldn’t be volunteering her children, she would be doing everything in her power to protect them. But she doesn’t care about them, because Tessie Hutchinson is

Show More
Related

  • The Dangers Of Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    When asked if there was anyone else in the household, Tessie claims, “There’s Don and Eva... Make them take their chance” (Jackson 5). By volunteering her daughters, that are married and thus draw with their one families, Tessie shows that she would rather have a family member be stoned to death than herself. She is also set out as a hypocrite because she does not complain when any other family is picking slips (if another family had picked the slip she would have stoned someone else to death), she only questions the lottery when her family is the one that has to choose. She cried out multiple times, “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right” (Jackson 8), questioning the fairness of the tradition after she is the one chosen to be stoned to death. Tessie finally sees outside of the bubble that everyone in the village is in. It is here that we see that violence is acceptable until it becomes

    Read More

  • And Limitations In Steinbeck's 'The Chrysanthemums'

    1370 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tessie’s reaction is normal. When her family was chosen she was upset and insisted that Mr. Summers had cheated. She kept repeating that her hadn’t given her husband enough time. Like any mother, Tessie is concerned about the wellbeing of the member of her family.

    Read More

  • Individuality vs Community in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    1732 Words  | 4 Pages

    The works of Shirley Jackson tend to the macabre because she typically unveils the hidden side of human nature in her short stories and novels.  She typically explores the darker side of human nature.  Her themes are wide-ranging and border on the surreal though they usually portray everyday, ordinary people.  Her endings are often not a resolution but rather a question pertaining to society and individuality that the reader must ask himself or herself.  Jackson's normal characters often are in possession of an abnormal psyche.  Children are portrayed as blank slates ready to learn the ways of the world from society.  However, adults have a hidden side already formed and lurking beneath the perceived normality of the established social order.  We see this best in Jackson's most famous short story, The Lottery.  Jackson's uses many elements of fiction to demonstrate how human nature can become desensitized to the point of mob murder of a member of their own community.  One of the ways she does this is through character.  While the shocking reason behind the lottery and the gruesome prize for its winner are not received until the ending, the characters come back to haunt us for their desensitized behavior earlier in the story.  For example, the children in the beginning of the story innocently gather stones as normal children might, yet their relish in doing so becomes macabre once we find out the purpose for which that are collecting them "Bobby Martin hard already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroy...eventually made a great pile of stones in one ...

    Read More

  • Theme of Tradition in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

    1319 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay on Shirley Jackson's The Lottery - Evils of Society Exposed

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 989.

    Read More

  • The Pain Tree Analysis

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s

    Read More

  • The Lottery Symbolism Essay

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Lottery Symbolism Analysis

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the beginning of the story, we see her desiring going to the lottery. She was laughing, joking, and encouraging her husband to go up and get a drawing when he didn’t move right away. She never would have suspected her family would be chosen, and furthermore, herself. Jackson creates a great contrast between Tessie’s nonchalance and the crowd’s nervousness (Yarmove). When her family is chosen, her character changes around knowing that there’s the possibility of her own death. Tessie’s character change is shocking, but falls into place with the holocaust. She symbolizes the human instinct of survival, and tries to offer up her own children and their families to lower her chances of death. In Yarmove’s analysis of Jackson’s work, he writes “It is the peevish last complaint of a hypocrite who has been hoisted by her own petard” to drive this thought home. The Nazis involved in the roundup of the ‘lesser’ people, alongside with whoever aided, did so because either they were naïve enough to believe they wouldn’t be killed themselves, or because they believed in the cause. Tessie symbolizes those who did so because they thought they wouldn’t be

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    1206 Words  | 3 Pages

    Shirley Jackson was a criticized female writer that wrote about US’s scramble for conformity and finding comfort in the past or old traditions. When Jackson published this specific short story, she got very negative feedback and even death threats. In the fictionial short story, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, a drawing takes place during the summer annually in a small town in New England. In this particular work, the lottery has been a tradition for over seventy years and has been celebrated by the townspeople every year. In detail, Richard H. Williams explains in his “A Critique of the Sampling Plan Used in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery””, he explains the process of how the lottery works. “The sampling plan consists of two

    Read More

  • The Horror of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    To follow through I will discuss the importance Jackson placed on the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson. She was seen as someone who is consumed by hypocrisy and weakness. Mrs. Hutchinson is aware that the lottery is wrong but does nothing to eradicate it or stand on her own. To her demise the lottery’s lesson is that the more artificial you are, the more of a target you become. Sadly the lottery became the death of Mrs. Hutchinson, when she was chosen as the winner of the annual event.

    Read More

  • Point of View in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" uses the third-person dramatic point of view to tell a story about an un-named village that celebrates a wicked, annual event. The narrator in the story gives many small details of the lottery taking place, but leaves the most crucial and chilling detail until the end: the winner of the lottery is stoned to death by the other villagers. The use of the third-person point of view, with just a few cases of third-person omniscient thrown in, is an effective way of telling this ironic tale, both because the narrator's reporter-like blandness parallels the villagers' apparent apathy to the lottery, and because it helps build to the surprise ending by giving away bits of information to the reader through the actions and discussions of the villagers without giving away the final twist.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Lottery And The Story Of An Hour

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson we are told of a small village of about 300 and the event that takes place on June 27th of every year. All members of the community are required to participate in this lottery

    Read More

  • The Lottery Character Analysis Essay

    1131 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson arrives late, having “cleanly forgotten what day it was” (411). While the town does not make a fuss over Tessie’s tardiness, several people make remarks, “in voices loud enough to be heard across the crowd” (411). Jackson makes the choice to have Tessie stand out from the crowd initially. This choice first shows Tessie’s motivation. Tessie was so caught up in her everyday household chores that she does not remember that on this one day of the year someone was going to be stoned to death at the lottery.

    Read More

  • Puppy by George Saunders

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...

    Read More

  • The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

    2026 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a disturbing social practice in a village. Besides, there were about three hundred citizens in the small village where the setting took place. The introduction of “the lottery” is about an event that takes place every year on 27th in the month of June, where the community members of this tradition organize a lottery. Everyone in the village including small children to adults is expected to participate. Besides, when this story was introduced at the very first in 1948 by Shirley Jackson, many people were upset. This is because this story was so strange to undertake in modern enlightened times.

    Read More

More about Selfishness In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'

Open Document