The Lottery The short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson proposes an annual lottery drawing in a little village set in New England. However, unlike any usual lottery, the winner is stoned to death by their fellow townsmen, women and children included. The lottery seems to have been a custom around the area for over seventy years. While other towns are starting to go away from this method, this village continues the tradition. Although it may seem like a simple story, Shirley Jackson implemented various symbols incorporated into the names, objects, and scenario in the story to hide the meaning and intention behind the lottery. Firstly, the names alone conceal a lot of symbolism. The author utilizes symbolic names to indicate reason …show more content…
The main symbols displayed in the lottery are the rocks, the black box, as well as the stool. The rocks symbolize the method of death. Stoning was a common way of killing people who had to pay a price of some sort. However, they would want to make the experience painful and drawn-out. Round stones were being picked up and collected. Even the children followed suit as “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (Walker 113). The smoothest and roundest stones were mainly being picked up for a reason. Instead of large, and pointy-edged stones, which would easily kill someone within seconds, round and smooth stones were chosen which would draw out death and make the stoning a much more painful experience. This indicates that the tradition has been going on for so long, the people that grow up with this find it normal to be done. The old man who criticized the other towns that grew tired of the Lottery has been used to seeing the Lottery around for so long and had actually supported the reason behind it. Next to the rocks in symbolism was the stool as well as the black box. The black box which was used to draw the pieces of paper symbolizes the key between life and death. The color black is a symbol for death and despair as well which can be connected to all of the terrible acts that have been committed with …show more content…
This story still remains relevant in comparison to today. Simple towns people who speak to each other on a daily basis and joke around with each other all of the sudden turn around and kill one of their one. This story symbolized the change of heart within people when events go on. With various symbols, Shirley Jackson created the short story, The Lottery, to show society and what it has been and what it could be. One might even say that Jackson wanted to keep it in the mind of a ‘modern’ society that such things could happen again. This particular short story I found quite disturbing and yet I found myself thinking about it afterwards for quite some time. I enjoy books that make you think and have you questioning your own beliefs. In fact, I found myself discussing the book with my wife. Whether one finds the theme disturbing or violent, it definitely provokes discussion and because of that I would definitely recommend it for others to
“The Lottery” Interpretive Essay “The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts of with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers, the official, holds the lottery. After that, every family draws out of an old black box, and a certain family gets picked. Out of the certain family, one person gets picked as the unlucky “winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery.
In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", the black wooden box functions to set the tone of the story's unexpected outcome, in addition to, elevating the theme of fault in practicing tradition solely because it is so. The box's aesthetic appearance assists the reader in deconstructing a false association with a lottery and a positive outcome. Its surface is coated in black, being not colorful or curious to look at like modern lottery ball machines. This choice of coloring, or rather lack of, is a nod towards Jackson's dark interpretation of a lottery. This darkness is hinted also by Mr. Martin and his son, who are hesitant to approach the vicinity of the box when it is first placed on a stool by Mr. Summers, revealing their fear in what it represents.
In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the author has demonstrated each symbol and the meaning that holds behind them. The black box is culturally known as a dark and evil color. It represents the fate of the people in town, and the three-legged stool is used as a support for the black box to lay on top of the object. Stoning is ancient.
The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who
“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize.
Then before we know it, by the end of the day the audience is presented by this old fashioned, gruesome death of stoning. This source is most accurately going to be used in my essay, by its citation for irony of the “stoning” itself. I quote “though the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones”. Ironically no one in the community understands why they must kill a citizen each year, but in response, know “exactly” how to throw stones and kill
Through my reading of Helen Nebeker's article " The Lottery: Symbolic Tour de Force, I've found many symbolic items throughout the story as according to Nebeker, "It is at this secondary point that the reader begins to suspect that a second story lies beneath the first and that Miss Jackson's "symbolic intentions" are not "incidental" but, indeed, paramount. Then one discovers that the author's careful structure and consistent symbolism work to present not only a symbolic summary of man's past but a prognosis for his future which is far more devastating than the mere reminder that man has savage potential. Ultimately one finds that the ritual of the lottery, beyond providing a channel to release repressed cruelties, actually serves to generate a cruelty not rooted in man's inherent emotional needs at all. Man is not at the mercy of a murky, savage id; he is the victim of unexamined and unchanging traditions which he could easily change if he only realized their implications. Herein is horror"(Nebeker).
The Symbolism of The Lottery One big symbol that the short story is discreet about is the black box that is repeated throughout the short story symbolizes fear to adults which could affect even the most innocent. The black box appears to be the only paraphernalia that is still being used in the tradition of having a lottery. Mr. Summers is the one who is running the lottery at the time. Mr. Summers is seen as a nice man, however, when he is introduced, he is seen with the black box. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that uses the black box as a symbol to convey an underlying message that when the power of a tradition is given to a person, it could lead a crumbling society.
Other symbols that are connected in the story are the slips of paper and the black box. In the story, the slip of paper symbolizes equality among the villagers, “All of us took the same chance.” (Jackson 423). This means that all the villagers take the same chance to win on the lottery. On the other hand, the black box symbolizes death and evil.
In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing when the children are collecting stones from the river and putting them into piles. It hints that something bad is going to happen because it is unusual for boys to be grabbing stones and randomly put them into a pile. For example, while the towns people were getting ready for the lottery the narrator states, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example,selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix, eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.” (Jackson). This quotation shows that the boys in the village are finding the smoothest and roundest stones and putting them into a big pile.
Usually there’s a winner in a lottery, but not in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story intrigued me by it's suspenseful nature and it's chaotic events. In small town America, they come together once a year to perform an annual tradition. Mrs. Jackson demonstrates literary devices such as foreshadowing, mood, and conflict in “The Lottery”. Foreshadowing is used quite a few times in “The Lottery”.
“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts off with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers holds the lottery. Once everyone gathers, every family draws a slip of paper out of an old black box, and the family with the black mark on their paper gets picked. After that, each family member older than 3 years of age re-draws a slip of paper again and this time, the person with the black mark on their paper gets picked as the “lucky winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery, with her reward is being stoned to death.
In the story “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, it tells of a story in which a town murders one person a year in order for them to have a good harvest. Some townies don’t all believe in doing the act but they continue doing it because they truly believe in continuing tradition. In the story Shirley Jackson manages to convey her ideas through the story in many ways. One way being through symbolism, this is because by including the stones, the black box, and the slips of paper it would portray the town's dedication to tradition. The stones represent the violence humans create, the black box represents the town not wanting to change tradition since they said that “ the black box grew shabbier each year”, and the slips of paper represents the
“The Lottery” is an realism/horror story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about some villagers of a small New England town who follow the tradition of making a lottery every year. When it comes, they like to celebrate it with the correct rules and the correct objects so they can feel more comfortable. Everyone need to take a slip of paper from a small black box, and the paper with a black dot in it means that the family is the winner, then they raffle again; Bill Hutchinson, who was the husband of the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson picked a paper with a black dot in it, that meant that Tessie was the winner of the lottery, then she starts complaining because the drawing was not conducted properly. At the end, the townspeople moved off to a cleared spot outside the town and they begin stoning her to death (Jackson).
The short story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, the plot in the story that it only gives people an account of drawing lots to determine the winner who shall be stoned to death for harvest. However, we get a deep impression of the characters and their fate after reading the story. Jackson indicated a prevalent theme, the indirect of characterization and using symbolism and irony to modify this horror story. The Allegorical story of “ The Lottery” is often regarded as a satire of human behavior and social institutions, and exemplifies some of the central themes of Jackson’s fiction, including the victimization of the individual by society, the tendency of people to be cruel, and the presence of evil in everyday life.