Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Traditions exist everywhere in life. Some traditions like celebrating holidays are harmless because people follow those traditions because they value the memories associated with it. However, when people blindly follow a tradition it is bad. In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, the townspeople follow the tradition of having the lottery, without really knowing why. The Lottery conveys the theme that, following traditions can be beneficial, but when people follow traditions because they are afraid of change it can be harmful, through imagery, dialogue, symbolism, and irony. Jackson uses imagery a lot to convey her theme in The Lottery. While conducting the lottery Mr. Summers uses a black box to put all of the slips of paper into, “Mr. Summers

When someone brings up the idea of getting rid of the lottery, “Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools,’ he said. ‘Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more...Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly (Jackson 266).” In this dialogue Old Man Warner shows how he is scared of the change that would occur if they stopped doing the lottery. He also says that “there’s always been a lottery” which shows how he wanted to continue to do just because there has always been one. Symbolism is also utilized in The Lottery. Before the lottery the kids rounded up rocks to be used in the killing, “Bobby Martin had 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 Delacroix...eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys (Jackson 266).” The kids rounding up rocks for pelting the winner of the lottery, symbolizes the brainwashing and normalizing of the lottery. The kids are

First of all, the name of the story and the tradition “the lottery” very ironic. This is because when most people think of a lottery, they think that the winner wins some sort of prize, but in this story the winner wins a brutal and inhume demise. In the first sentence of the short story Jackson says, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green (Jackson 263).” This description is very ironic because it sets the story up to seem like it will be a happy and bright story and day but that is not at all the case. Irony in the story help enrich the story’s theme and its impact on the