Apple Jackson
ENG 101-4
Mary E. Payne
February 21, 2014
The Lottery Response Paper
Winning the lottery can be rewarding with money, gifts, and more. However, in the short story, 'The Lottery', written by Shirley Jackson, the lottery is something that people shouldn’t participate in. The short story takes place in a small town with an approximate number of three hundred residents. The lottery takes place every year on June 27 where the townspeople gather up in the middle of the town in order to participate in the lottery. We do not find out until the end of the story that the winning family member is sentenced to death in an unusual way. Jackson creates a story filled with symbolism, irony, grim reality, and a ritualized tradition that masks evil, which ultimately demonstrated how people blindly follow tradition.
To start with, the lottery is the way of life for the townspeople since it has been around for years. Most people who are very eager and willing to participate in the lottery gives the impression that it was something they all are familiar with and looking forward to despit...
Shirley Jackson wrote many books in her life, but she was well known by people for her story “The Lottery” (Hicks). “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948, in the New Yorker magazine (Schilb). The story sets in the morning of June 27th in a small town. The townspeople gather in the square to conduct their annual tradition, the Lottery. The winner of the lottery will stoned to death by the society. Although there is no main character in the story, the story develops within other important elements. There are some important elements of the story that develop the theme of the story: narrator and its point of view, symbolism, and main conflict. The story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, argues practicing a tradition without understanding the meaning of the practice is meaningless and dangerous.
In the Overview of ‘The Lottery’ written by Hicks, states that the lottery gives the people the disturbance that people feel the need for in life (Hicks). Sun Journal says that “"The Lottery ' ' is considered one of the most haunting and shocking short stories of modern American fiction” (Sun Journal). The story was originally published in The New Yorker in 1948 and after the story was published several people wrote letters and called The New Yorker expressing their disgust, consternation, and curiosity”(Sun Journal). In The Lottery: Overview Martin states, that““Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves—seems mundane, until the reader comes to realize that one of the members of the close-knit community is about to be stoned to death by the other residents.
The idea of winning a lottery is associated with luck, happiness and anticipation of good things. In Shirley Jackson's story, " The Lottery", this is not the case. The irony of the story is that the winner of the lottery gets stoned to death by everyone else in the town. The story is very effective because it examines certain aspects of human nature.
The specific details Jackson describes in the beginning of “The Lottery” set us up for the shocking conclusion. The setting in the beginning of the lottery, by Shirley Jackson, creates a mood of peacefulness and tranquility. The image portrayed by the author is that of a typical town on a normal summer day. Shirley Jackson uses this setting to foreshadow an ironic ending. The Lotteries has a theme of meaningless traditions can be harmful. The village lottery culminates in a violent murder each year, a bizarre ritual that suggests how dangerous traditions can be. Before we know what kind of lottery they’re conducting, the villagers and their preparations seem harmless. Tradition is endemic to small towns, a way to link families and generations.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is a short story about a once a year lottery that is performed in a small town. The story takes place in a town in New England. In this particular village during the lottery, one person is chosen at random to be stoned to death by the people. For nearly a century the lottery has been performed. This reoccurring event is not looked down upon and is accepted by the townspeople. By using symbolism, Jackson uses names, objects and the setting to mask irony of the lottery.
The chances of winning the lottery currently stands at one in two hundred and ninety-two million (Becker). Every year, Americans spend over seventy billion dollars in hopes of becoming a lottery winner, but what happens when these people are not winning money, but instead they are winning a death sentence? Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, follows a small town that conducts a traditional ceremony every year that results in the death of one citizen. Each family is forced to draw one paper, which ultimately results in one person drawing a paper with a black dot. That black dot symbolizes death. In this instance, a woman named Tessie Hutchinson becomes the martyr for other women in her society. Shirley Jackson’s literary work, “The
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" satirizes outdated tradition and it’s blind followers in what's supposed to be a civilized village. At first glance, the town is depicted as a modernized society. The men were conversing about taxes and sharing jokes while the women were exchanging “bits of gossip” (Jackson 1). We then learn the horrifying truth behind their tradition, the prize is death. The “winner” of the lottery is stoned to death by their neighbors. This tradition is intended to maintain social structure, yet it leads to the brutal loss of life which goes to show how it has been taken too far. This leads me to believe that the author’s intention was not simply to expose us to radical traditions and ideas but instead plea for us to think
The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a community that has a yearly lottery pull. The short story is set in a small town that is seemingly normal at first. Every year the town has a lottery pull, in which one person is chosen at random, to be stoned to death by all of their fellow townsmen. The lottery is a tradition that was started many years ago, and is kept alive by the current residents. By using symbolism, irony, and setting Jackson shows the true darkness within the entirety of the human race.
“The Lottery” is a story which shows the complexity and capability of human behavior. Something immoral, like stoning a person to death once a year, is a normal occurrence. The main character, Tessie Hutchinson, is the victim of the lottery. Tessie is a character with a number of seemingly good characteristics, yet her surrounding culture rejects these characteristics. The majority of the people in the village has opposite attitudes and beliefs in comparison to Tessie’s. These attitudes and beliefs reflect her personal desires which quickly struggle against the culture’s expectations. Tessie is unlike the other villagers; she is initially indifferent to the lottery indicating her desires are unrelated to the lottery. Upon winning the lottery, Tessie changes and her personal desires to survive and reject the lottery emerge in her selfishness and outspoken personality. These struggles against the village’s expectations are shown through the culture’s emphasis on tradition and small town ties.
What thoughts come to mind when you think of "The Lottery?" Positive thoughts including money, a new home, excitement, and happiness are all associated with the lottery in most cases. However, this is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s short story, "The Lottery." Here, the characters in the story are not gambling for money, instead they are gambling for their life. A shock that surprises the reader as she unveils this horrifying tradition in the village on this beautiful summer day. This gamble for their life is a result of tradition, a tradition that is cruel and inhumane, yet upheld in this town. Shirley Jackson provides the reader’s with a graphic description of violence, cruelty, and inhumane treatment which leads to the unexpected meaning of "The Lottery." Born in San Francisco, Jackson began writing early in her life. She won a poetry prize at age twelve and continued writing through high school. In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. After marriage to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a notable literary critic, she continued to write. Her first national publication “My Life with R.H. Macy” was published in The New Republic in 1941but her best-known work is “The Lottery.”(Lit Links or Reagan). Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to portray a story with rising action that surprises the reader with the unexpected odd ritual in the village. While one would expect “The Lottery” to be a positive event, the reader’s are surprised with a ritual that has been around for seventy-seven years , demonstrating how unwilling people are to make changes in their everyday life despite the unjust and cruel treatment that is associated with this tradi...
The short story 'The Lottery'; by Shirley Jackson is very well known because of the tradition of the village. Tradition is a big point issued to the people throughout their lives. The title 'The Lottery'; sounds as if something good is being given away. As you know after reading the story, that isn't the case at all. The tradition the village faces is very controversial. The tradition of the lottery is taken in many different ways, because it is unexamined. In particular, the conflict of the story can be seen in the contrast between Old Man Warner and Tessie Hutchinson.
Everything may not be what they seem to be in Shirley Jackson short story “The Lottery” people hold loyalties of varying level to various items incident and rituals in their lives. The townspeople hold the utmost loyalty towards their tradition of the lottery. Their loyalty also lies with some traditions and items such as the ritualistic drawing box, which is tattered and worn. Also their loyalties lie more with this than they do with the townspeople’s neighbors and families. As a whole these people feel more loyalty to a tradition that feel has gotten through hard times and have seen no reason to chance over many years.
In the Lottery by Shirley Jackson, this short passage, discuss the significance of characterization, tone, symbolism, metaphor, similes and different phrases each of these subjects helps shape the short story. In this short story the Lottery takes place in a small village in which the town gathers around in order to pick names out of the box. This story has to deal with the themes dangers of blindly following tradition but also the randomness of persecution.
Most people are hopeful to win a prize when they think of the lottery, but that is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. In this short story, winning the lottery is a bad thing, not a good thing. If someone were to win the lottery in this case, he or she would be stoned to death. To determine who is the lucky winner of this dreadful lottery, the man of each household is to pick a piece of paper outside of a black box and the one with a black dot on the paper is the winning family. Then, each member of the family picks a paper out of a box and again, the one with the black dot is the winner, or in this case, the loser. One would assume the family that is chosen would be devastated and do anything to protect each other, but that is
"The Lottery" is a story written by Shirley Jackson. The story involves a small, rural community that has chosen to follow traditions that they do not fully understand. In a weird ending to the story, a woman wins the lottery, despite the fact that she forgot about it until the last moment. When I think of the word "lottery" it is usually linked to many positive connotations. I immediately think of millions of dollars. When I read the story, naturally I think "the lottery" is going to be something good, not something dark and sinister. Shirley Jackson, in her story “The Lottery”, uses seemingly ordinary details about the setting to emphasize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.