The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Lessons Essay

718 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Discuss Jackson's use of irony in "The Lottery"

In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery,” there is an old fashioned town. Every year, in June, the town participates in a tradition where they draw and someone gets stoned. Whenever the person is chosen, everyone, including their family, stones that person even if they don’t want to. Even though Shirley is a laid back writer and it’s a short story, you can learn many lessons from, “The Lottery.” The three major lessons and themes are about social conformity, tradition, and fake friends. Of the three, social conformity appears in almost the entire story. You can learn from this story that social conformity is a shield that blinds the people from the truth. “The Lottery,” starts out with the villagers gathering in the town square. To anyone else, it might be a dreaded day, but to these people, it was a normal June 27. They all get up and show up like it is a normal day. None of them want to be there, but because they’re convinced tradition it what’s best, they show up to their possible death. “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled …show more content…

Summers said.’ Let’s finish quickly.’” This is one of the many examples of them clearly not wanting to do the lottery. They all just want to get this over with and go on with their day like it is any other day. You can tell that no one wants to do this, but they think they have to because it’s a tradition. “All the children had stones. Someone handed Little Davy some little pebbles.” Again, another example of how horrible the lottery really is. They make Tessie’s own family kill her, that is how badly they are blinded by social conformity. They can’t even realize how senseless and horrible they are being by making families and friends turn on each other and kill each other. In some ways, social conformity is worse than the lottery itself. Shirley Jackson shows many examples of how social conformity makes you do horrible things without

Show More
Related

  • Conformity in Society Exposed in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Lottery, year after year, even since Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was a child, the same ritual has gone on. It is as if the community never learns from its previous mistakes. As long as no one in the town speaks up about such a twisted yearly event, nothing is ever going to change. If Martin Luther King or Malcolm X wouldn’t have raised their voices against the prejudice that they had experienced their entire lives, we might still be living in a segregated world, which was once thought to be “okay.” This is similar to The Lottery, in which the townspeople are brainwashed into believing that this ritual is normal. For example, Old Man Warner is outraged when he hears that the north village might give up the lottery, calling...

    Read More

  • Analysis of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    506 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Conformity in The Lottery, The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas and The Namesake

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, the people of the village are consumed by a tradition. Every year in the month of June, they conduct a lottery to determine who will be stoned. The unjustified killing of a human being is widely viewed as an iniquitous act. Although surrounding communities have ceased the tradition of the lottery, this society continues the tradition. The idea of not practicing the tradition has been brought up numerous times within the community but “the subject was allowed to fade off ” (351). The community was conscience of the tradition being unethical but because it was a part of their heritage and believed to determine the success of their harvest, no one would do anything about the lottery. Once she is picked from the lottery, Tessie Hutchinson notices that the people are not conducting the lottery fairly and decides to stand up against the tradition. It can be inferred that women were not considered equal to the males of the village. Tessie—a woman— had the courage to stand against the tradition. Tessie understood that not all traditions are good. A tradition can be so engraved into an individual that they forget its purpose. In the story...

    Read More

  • Foreshadowing in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    "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.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Hunger Games And The Lottery

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “The Lottery,” the town put so much importance on tradition. As the townspeople were getting ready, Mr. Summers said, “Guess we better get started, get this over with…” (Jackson 2). Even though the town is getting ready to do the lottery, the people do not like to do it. This is very odd because if people do not like to do something, people tend to stop doing the activity.

    Read More

  • The Lottery Rhetorical Analysis

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, tone and symbolism are equally important elements in comprehending this eerie short story. This dark tale takes place in a small town of about 300 people during the summer. The writer begins by painting a picture of children playing, women gossiping, and men making small-talk of home and finances, putting the reader at ease with a tone of normality. The people of the town coalesce before the lottery conductor, named Mr. Summers, appears to begin the annual town ritual of drawing from a box which will result in the killing of one townsperson by stone throwing. It isn’t until the fateful conclusion when the reader comes to realize there is nothing normal about the

    Read More

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

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Blind Obedience in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    1070 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author of “The Lottery” wrote this story “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson 211). This story reflects human behavior in society to show how although rules, laws or traditions do not make sense, people follow them. Throughout the story the three main symbols of how people blindly follow senseless traditions were the lottery itself, the color black, and the hesitation that people had towards the prize.

    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

  • Critical Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    1206 Words  | 3 Pages

    When the story first opens up, the introductory scene that opens the story up includes children gathering stones and running to the destination where the lottery takes place. According to Linda Wagner-Martin’s journal, “The Lottery by Shirley Jackson”, she explains that the children running around provides a calm and peaceful vibe to the story. She also explains that bringing the children into the description creates a poignancy not only for the death of Tessie, the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to her youngest son, Dave. She explains that it’s family members, women and children, and fellow residents that are being murdered through this ritual. The author additionally attempts to throw the reader off at first by creating a beautiful image of a town where the “flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” which gives an innocent feel to the town; but, the story actually ends with an egregious ending. One of the children, Martin, “stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the younger boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones.” The reason behind the younger children picking up the smoothest stones was because it would allow the person that’s being stoned a slow death due to their soft edges. With this, Jackson indicates that the children define this murderous and unethical event as ethical because they help their elders murder someone

    Read More

  • Examples Of Violence In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    514 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tessie Hutchinson was angry that her husband had gotten the lottery, so the family drew again. In the final draw, the crowd saw that Tessie had gotten the paper with the black dot. The instant the crowd knew who got the lottery, they began grabbing the stones the boys had piled up earlier. Formerly, Mr. Summers joined the crowd and said “let’s finish quickly” to be in time for noon dinner(Jackson, 7). At this instant, Mrs. Delacroix had “selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands” for the ritual(Jackson, 7). This sentence shows how terrible the lottery is and how extreme it can get. Without delay, Tessie is standing in the middle of the crowd when “a stone hit her on the side of the head” and that was the signal to begin the ritual(Jackson, 7). The lottery is just a cruel thing to the victim and their family who have to watch and be a part

    Read More

  • Literary Elements In The Lottery

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the beginning of the story it starts out seeming like an ordinary civilized community where everyone gets along. In the first sentence of the story “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). Even though the towns people knew what day it was and what happens on July 27th they had no problem with gathering in the town center to get the lottery under way. The kids would start gathering first, then the men, and then the women and they all would present themselves wearing nice cloths as if attending a special event. This became such a tradition that people even forgot about it and this is made evident when Mrs. Hutchinson said “and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running" (Jackson). Mrs. Hutchinson had put a target on her back from then on because she was seen as an outsider or not normal because she had joined the group late. “The villagers’ blind acceptance of the lottery has allowed ritual murder to become part of their town fabric.” (Sparknote

    Read More

  • The Lottery Character Analysis

    800 Words  | 2 Pages

    She showed up late to the lottery which makes it seem like it is not important to her, she later shows she doesn’t take it seriously when she shoves her husband and tells him not to be nervous when selecting his card from the box. After everybody opens their card and it is revealed that her husband has open the one with the black dot, Tessie reacts in a very different way than before. “Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn 't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn 't fair!"” ( Jackson) It now seems as if the lottery is a huge deal and she doesn’t want anything to do with the results of having her husband draw the card with the black dot. Tessie pushing her husband and her yelling about her husband being selected can be seen as Tessie disobeying the social order that is in the village. She does this by disrespecting her husband and then questioning the decision of Mr. Summers. (Capitalist Society in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Comparative Literature) It is finally proven that she finds the lottery a big deal when she is speechless once the rest of her family show that they don’t have the black dot on their card during the drawing for the

    Read More

  • The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

    366 Words  | 1 Pages

    The way the characters present themselves in the beginning of the story puts an optimistic view on the lottery. After all, lotteries are generally associated with an increase of wealth and prosperity. The outcome of the scenario seems promising. The town’s people gather with zeal. One character, Mrs. Hutchinson, rushes to make it to the lottery on time. This reassures the reader that the lottery is a must-see event. Another character, Old Man Warner, states that the other towns were crazy for giving up the lottery. With this being said, obviously something good was to come out of the contest. The reader does not suspect the tragedy that lies in the end of the story.

    Read More

  • Outline For The Lottery Shirley Jackson Essay

    590 Words  | 2 Pages

    This illustrates how people can be so blinded by the dangers of tradition because even though their mother or father are going to die they’re blinded by selfishness when only caring that they got saved.

    Read More

More about The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Lessons Essay

Open Document