Theme Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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The theme of the story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is the danger of the villagers’ customs. The people annually participate in what they call the lottery, unlike the one present in the world today. They gather around in the town square and draw a slip of paper with a certain mark on it, and whoever draws the marked slip of paper is stoned to death by the others. The villagers are fixed on this tradition and do not seem to engage in the more present activities happening in their world. These traditions are one major factor that leads to the theme of danger from their customs. This would be considered the crucial theme that the whole story revolves around. Plot enhances the presentation of the theme in this story by showing the reader how incoherent the tradition really is. Throughout the story, the reader learns about this annual event that occurs in this small town and how dreadful it really is. The reader, also, starts to learn that the villagers have no reasoning behind their actions; all the villagers know is that the lottery has happened forever. “ ‘There’s always been a lottery,’ he said” (Jackson 4). The lottery is the main idea for this story’s plot because it is what the whole story is based off of. The plot increases the theme of danger from traditions by presenting to the reader the bad things happening in the village …show more content…

People see truth about the human mind throughout this story, the truth that people will listen to anything being told to them and go along with it. “The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions” (Jackson 3). Jackson’s style of writing and her techniques of symbolism for this story are other things that make this writing a classic in literature. People can relate to it and find an interest because of its relativeness to the world among those who live in

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