Symbolism In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Symbolism and its Role
A symbol is as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is “A thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.” (Symbol) Symbolism can be found on the pages of both “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Symbolism is a key component found in both these short stores and the symbolism plays a vital role in getting across the authors point. The symbolism also helps the authors get across what they’re saying without having to actually say it. It engages the reader within the short story and has them actually stop and think and maybe even be able to relate back a symbol to something that they’re going though making them understand it better. Symbols in both stories represent just how blindly and in good faith people will follow tradition.
A major symbol in “Everyday

One of these symbols is the black box. The shabby box is representative of the tradition of the lottery and the villager’s loyalty to it. The tradition runs so deeply through the villagers that they refuse even to change the black box is just about falling apart and is hardly black after years of use. This attachment is based on the belief that “the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here.” The lottery is littered with items from the past that have been passed down year after year such as the stones and family lists. No one wants to deviate from these parts of tradition the lottery must be performed the exact same way it has every year that has passed. However, some of the lottery traditions haven’t survived the years such as using woods chips instead of slips of paper. There really is no reason for the villagers to be so loyal to the tradition of the black box while being disloyal to other traditions in the