The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Literary Techniques Essay

Literary techniques are used in all kinds of literature. They are essential to a good story due to the fact that they are what helps bring the story to life with details and images and the reader’s imagination. Using them correctly pulls the reader deeper into the story. Shirley Jackson used three main techniques in her short story called, “The Lottery”. She masterfully used themes, symbols, and foreshadowing throughout the story to engage the reader and add to the overall experience of the story.

One of the literary techniques Shirley uses is a theme of tradition. Throughout the story, it talks about how certain things about the lottery have not changed. For example, the little black box that they draw from has not changed. The black box was torn, discolored, and older than the oldest man in the village. “Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything being done.” (Jackson) Another theme she used was the theme of family. At the beginning of the story, you can tell how important family is to the villagers by how they act. When they first gather in the village square, they split up into their own separate families. Each member of

each family stands side by side while the names are being drawn from the box. Family relationships are critical during the process of the lottery until the very end when they discover that Tessie will die. The last important theme that I noticed was how the villagers had rules. It was a rule that every member must be present, the man of the household represents his family at first, and when they are allowed to read their papers. There were also rules that were disregarded such as, a recital by the official of the lottery and a ritual salute to each person who drew from the box. All of these themes help us understand the writers underlying message in the story.
The story also shows instances of symbolism. To illustrate her use of symbolism, you could start by looking at the color of the box. the box they draw the pieces of paper out of is a black box. It could have been any color in our color wheel, but the author chose black. She did this because the color black is usually associated with death. The black dot on the paper is another example of symbolism, the black dot symbolizes death to whoever holds it in their hands. The color Shirley chose to use also plays an important role in the story, in the same way, it does with the black box. According to the Bourn Creative article, Meaning of The Color Black, it is also considered the color of fear, mystery and evil. This fits the story perfectly since everyone is afraid to draw the black dot because they do not want to be the one to die. Who will die remains a mystery up until the last minute when Tessie draws the black dot. The entire village suddenly turns into a bunch of merciless savages and kill her once they learn that they will live another year.
While reading the story, you might also notice how it seems to foreshadow certain events in the end.

A good example would be when the little boys are playing together before the lottery takes place. They go around collecting the best rocks they can find. The young boys either put the rocks in a pile or keep them in their pockets. At first it seems like they are just playing little games and having innocent fun. However, when we reach the end of the story, those same stones are used to kill Tessie. In addition, Mr. Summers mentioned to Tessie how he thought they would “go on without her”. In my opinion, he seemed a little too happy about the idea of Tessie not being there. This clearly foreshadowed her death and it also makes you wonder if the whole thing is

rigged.
Just these three literary techniques made the story more interesting. By using different themes, the reader can infer the meaning or lesson that the writer was trying to convey. From the different symbols, we can tell that Shirley wanted to have a certain effect on the reader. Lastly, the foreshadowing events created suspense and heightened the experience of reading the story. All of these things together made for an interesting story.