The Lottery Shirley Jackson

677 Words2 Pages

Psychoanalytic criticism is based off of the study of Sigmund Freud’s neurotic patients. Freud discovered “that the human mind contains a dimension that is only partially accessible to the consciousness and then only through indirect means such as dreams or neurotic symptoms” (Rivken and Ryan 389); this part of the mind is known as the unconscious or id. It is through the unconscious mind that repressed desires, feelings, memories, and instinctual desires are encapsulated, and they typically deal with sexuality and violence (Rivken and Ryan 389). The repressed sexuality and violence is notably traced back to childhood and the relationship of the child to their parents. Psychoanalytic criticism is heavily based in the Oedipus Complex; the child …show more content…

Hutchinson is representative of Jackson’s mother and her death symbolic of their rocky relationship. Mrs. Hutchinson first appears in the short as she arrived late to the lottery. She “came hurriedly along” (Jackson 2) indicating her desire to be a part of the festivities. Yet, as the story moves along Mrs. Hutchinson is increasingly vocal that the lottery is of a time gone by. When her families name is chosen she offers up her married daughters: “‘There’s Don and Eva,’ Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. ‘Make them take their chance!’” (Jackson 5). Ultimately, dissatisfied with the results of the lottery she quietly said: “I think we ought to start over” (Jackson 6). This scene creates a woman that is eager to be a part of the community until it negatively affects her. Thus, creating a hypocritical woman that would be willing to sacrifice her own daughters to save her own life. From the psychoanalytic perspective, the scene presented is the manifest content, the literal representation of the work. However, Freud would have you look at the dream-thoughts of these events to determine the actual meaning. To begin, Jackson presents Mrs. Hutchinson as an eager member of society, always putting her best foot forward, but the minute times get rough her community focus quickly shifts to a personal focus. Indicating that Jackson feels her mother acts the same way in regards to their family, which shows that Jackson views her mother as hypocritical and

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • Shirley Jackson's Symbolism in The Lottery

    1622 Words  | 4 Pages

    Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery', is a story that is filled with symbolism. The author uses symbolism to help her represent human nature as tainted, no matter how pure one thinks of himself or herself, or how pure their environment may seem to be. The story is very effective in raising many questions about the pointless nature of humanity regarding tradition and violence. 'The Lottery' clearly expresses Jackson's feelings concerning mankind?s evil nature hiding behind traditions and rituals. She shows how coldness and lack of compassion in people can exhibit in situations regarding tradition and values. Jackson presents the theme of this short story with a major use of symbolism. Symbolism shows throughout the setting of 'The Lottery,' the objects, the peoples actions, and even in the time and the names of the lucky contestants.

    Read More

  • Tradition in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shirley Jackson?s insights and observations about society are reflected in her shocking and disturbing short story The Lottery. Jackson reveals two general attitudes in this story: first is the shocking tendency for societies to select a scapegoat and second is the idea that communities are victims of social tradition and rituals.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Duality Of The Lottery By Tessie Hutchinson

    830 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hutchinson said, and the people near her laugh” (142). Jackson manipulates her reader at this point by making us believe that Mrs. Hutchinson is all for the lottery. Interestingly, we come to find that other women in the town have similar behaviors as hers, “’There goes my old man,’ Mrs. Delacroix said” (142). Despite the fact that there are minor differences in their words of Tessie and Mrs. Delacroix, it becomes evident that their anxieties are of the same essence. Now, as the story progresses and the lottery begins it becomes more difficult to compare Mrs. Hutchinson to other people in the town after the first round where her family wins the lottery. At that moment, Mrs. Hutchinson losses it and transforms to something that the villagers do not like. She begins to protest and even more after the second round when she learns that she will be sacrificed. All at once, Mrs. Hutchinson tries to do everything she can to get out of such death, “There’s Don and Eva,” she offers up her daughter for the slaughter instead of herself (143). Lastly, her near death drove her to show her true colors and how she changed through out the whole

    Read More

  • Tradition In Shirley Jackson's Lottery

    2110 Words  | 5 Pages

    Shirley Jackson’s “Lottery” satirically creates a society that puts the importance of tradition above even the life of the members of the community, as indicated by Old Man Warner’s response to Mr. Adams stating, “‘[O]ver in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.’ Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools … Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them … There’s always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly” (413). Here Old Man Warner defends the tradition of their society, though notably without justifying the tradition. Rather, he focuses on the people of other villages and the tradition as self-evident, both logical fallacies. The first argument he makes in favor of continuing to have a lottery is an ad

    Read More

  • Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    Why would a civilized and peaceful town would ever suggest the horrifying acts of violence can take place anywhere at anytime and the most ordinary people can commit them. Jackson's fiction is noted for exploring incongruities in everyday life, and “The Lottery”, perhaps her most exemplary work in this respect, examines humanity's capacity for evil within a contemporary, familiar, American setting. Noting that the story’s characters, physical environment, and even its climactic action lacks significant individuating detail, most critics view “The Lottery.” As a modern-day parable or fable, which obliquely addresses a variety of themes, including the dark side of human nature, the danger of ritualized behavior, and the potential for cruelty when the individual submits to the mass will. Shirley Jackson also addresses cruelty by the citizen’s refusal to stand up and oppose “The Lottery.” Violence and cruelty is a major theme in “The Lottery.”

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    2953 Words  | 6 Pages

    Another theme is sex roles which is evident in the subordination of the women throughout the story. The first place that this subordination is evident is when examining the power structure of the village, the hierarchy in which Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves are at the top. One of the only reasons that Summers is held up as this authority is because he has the time that is vested because he does not devote that time to his “scold wife” (Jackson 2). Another example of this is the subordination of Tessie by her husband while she tries to defend him from stoning. Though she is trying to defend his life, Bill shows he is still the dominating force and puts himself above Tessie before he is killed (Jackson 3).

    Read More

  • Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the theme that blindly following traditions is dangerous in her short story “The Lottery” through the use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony.

    Read More

  • The Horror of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    To follow through I will discuss the importance Jackson placed on the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson. She was seen as someone who is consumed by hypocrisy and weakness. Mrs. Hutchinson is aware that the lottery is wrong but does nothing to eradicate it or stand on her own. To her demise the lottery’s lesson is that the more artificial you are, the more of a target you become. Sadly the lottery became the death of Mrs. Hutchinson, when she was chosen as the winner of the annual event.

    Read More

  • Examine Traditions In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    349 Words  | 1 Pages

    Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” tells a story of a tradition passed on from one generation to the next that has allowed ritual murder to become a part of the town’s history. “The Lottery” shows that these traditions have the ability to destroy a society. “The Lottery” exhibits the dangers of blindly following unexamined traditions. The perils of blindly following unexamined rituals are demonstrated when the people gather in the square while the children gather stones, when Bill Hutchinson willingly gives up his wife without a second thought, and when Tessie Hutchinson is stoned.

    Read More

  • Psychoanalytic Theory in MacBeth

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    Psychoanalytic Theory itself has, what seems to be, two contradictory halves: Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first half focuses solely on the author and the unconscious mind; the second considers the unconscious, but prefers to concentrate on outside influences by deconstructing the text itself. According to Freud, interpretation is achieved by examining conflicts and symbols, such as Freudian slips and dream images. These outlets are help to determine whether an individual’s external behavior coincides (or conflicts) with their internal emotion. Freud placed emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex, which is the idea of repressed sexual feelings toward a parent of opposite sex. He also defined three levels of the subconscious mind: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. Barry explains that the stages align with “the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious” respectively (93). On the other hand, Lacan, a follower of Freud, concentrated on the relationship between an author and his or her work. He claimed the two were inexorably connected, that objectivity is nonexistent. In an essence: an author’s personality is used to interpret the text and, in contrast, the text is used to gain insight about the author. Regardless of the emphasis, psychoanalytic criticism engages an

    Read More

  • Analysis of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    4600 Words  | 10 Pages

    Shirley Jackson’s famous short story, “The Lottery,” was published in 1948 and remains to this day one of the most enduring and affecting American works in the literary canon. “The Lottery” tells the story of a farming community that holds a ritualistic lottery among its citizens each year. Although the text initially presents audiences with a close-knit community participating in a social event together on a special day, the shocking twist at the work’s end—with the death of the lottery’s “winner” by public stoning—has led to its widespread popularity, public outcry and discussion, and continued examination in modern times (Jackson). One potential critical theory that can be applied to Jackson’s “The Lottery” is the reader-response approach. This analytical lens is a “theory ... that bases the critical perspective of a text on ‘the reader’ and his or her personal interpretation” of that text (Parker 314). Reader-response criticism was coined by literary critic Louise Rosenblatt in the mid-20th century. It soon served as a cornerstone of literary movement in the 1960s and 1970s that later became intrinsic to the study of other schools of literary thought today. In using reader-response theory to examine “The Lottery” in a contemporary context, one might perform reading surveys and metacognitive questionnaires to determine whether the short story still proves resonant and thought-provoking. Therefore, just as “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson evoked an explicit and even fierce reaction in the past, so too does the use of reader-response criticism today help reveal that the short story may still hold the ability to sustain both its rising tension and surprising turn at the end.

    Read More

  • Outline For The Lottery Shirley Jackson Essay

    590 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thesis: Shirley Jackson’s usage of irony, characters, and plot portray the stories theme of the dangers of unconsciously following tradition.

    Read More

  • Psychoanalytic Theory

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    Personality is an individual’s characteristic pattern of feeling, thinking and acting. Psychodynamic theories of personality view human behavior as a dynamic interaction between the conscious mind and unconscious mind, including associated motives and conflicts (Myers & Dewall, pg# 572, 2015). These theories focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences. Psychodynamic theories are descended from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, which is his ideology of personality and the associated treatment techniques. Psychoanalysis attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. This theory also includes the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions. He proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality. Freud’s historically significant psychoanalytic theory became part of the human cultural legacy.

    Read More

  • Personality Development Essay

    1602 Words  | 4 Pages

    Psychoanalytic theory has its basis in the unconscious mind. The approach emphases on studying of childhood events that may influence the functioning of an adult.In

    Read More

More about The Lottery Shirley Jackson

Open Document