A Literary Analysis Of The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Justin Walters Mrs. Briscoe English I Honors 7 September 2017 Violence in “The Lottery” What does the author of The Lottery want us to understand about violence? Well, there are several things that are related to violence in this story by Shirley Jackson, such as the ritual of doing it the way that it is done, the style of it itself, and not even having enough time to draw a card sometimes. The first thing is the ritual of doing the lottery the way that it is done, and that is by kids drawing cards and having a black dot meaning that they were killed by rock-throwing by all of the other villagers. For example, in paragraph two, Jackson explains, “The children assembled first…”, “pockets full of stones”.

Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” uses specific word choice to convey a suspenseful tone. One of her specific word choices Jackson chose is ¨nervously¨ to interpret how the lottery has affected everybody in the community, both emotionally and physically. An example of this would be the the interaction between Adams and Mr.Summers; Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, “Adams.” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi Steve,” Mr. Summers said, and Adams said “Hi Joe.”

When a person experiences a one thing enough time, eventually, they will become desensitize to it. People can become used to inhumane things such as death and murder if it is entrenched sufficiently into their lives. For instance, in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the tradition of a community brutally murders a member of their town due to an insensible tradition, when the victims challenge the morality of the ritual, the community shows no remorse including her victim husband, dehumanizing the

Shirley Jackson 's popular short story, "The Lottery," was distributed in 1948 and stays right up 'til today a standout amongst the most persevering and influencing American works in the literacy group (Reagan 1). The story was at initially met with an undesirable reaction in light of its harsh nature and explanation of the possibly perilous nature of society. Women in the story portray how she felt an outcast in the community around her (Bailey 1). “The Lottery” offers a dim indication of the threats of taking after traditions in society. The story shows us how we are just pawns of more powerful people, that choose what road to follow.

Number of literary devices are used by the author for example, irony, symbolism, foreshadowing, The villagers for the most part didn 't question the moral ways of the lottery; being born and raised into the lottery. They had little knowledge of any other way things could be to serve as their moral compass. permitted the author to keep the outcome of the story an exposure. This therefore led to the reader to consider everything is well one of Shirley Jackson 's opening sentence tells The early tone of Shirley Jackson 's "The Lottery" is light, fun, perfect is quite deceiving to the reader. When Jackson describes the townspeople but actually there is something wrong

“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.

The Lottery The summary of “The Lottery” begins describing a nice sunny summer day; People in this village began to prepare for the yearly lottery event. In preparation for the event people in the village gather around and men watching over the children discuss the weather, equipment, and taxes. Women soon come to join the men as they exchange gossip with other women of the village while children are busy gathering stones to fill their pockets and prepare for the lottery. “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones;” (p388), soon parents began to call the jubilant children to gather around as the lottery was set to begin.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson signifies a huge conflict of person vs society on how death is looked at in this society. In the story the society is holding a lottery and the winner is stoned to death and seen as a sacrifice for the whole society. In fact, the society feels no pain in administering this custom and has a very weak view on death. One way that Jackson amplifies this way the society views death is through the devastated reaction by Ms. Tessie Hutchinson that occurs when she is getting stoned by the whole village since she just won the annual lottery. The lines read, "‘It isn't fair, it isn't right,’ Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.(Jackson 16)”

The short story, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. The Lottery is about people from a small town that gather together in the square in June. In this village, there are only 300 people. Therefore, unlike most towns, the lottery only takes a few hours. The children in the town collect stones, rocks, and small pebbles and put them in a pile in the corner of the square.

The Theme Thingy Shirley Jackson’s infamous short story, “The Lottery” is located in a quaint little village around southwest Vermont with a measly population of only 300 people. Every year, the townspeople hold a possibly religious event, with malicious intent. Bill Hutchinson, a hard-working man of the village, is the head of a loving family, whom he runs with his wife tessie. During the actual lottery, the Hutchinson family is picked, and later on, Tessie is chosen as the sole receiver of the many stones that had been gathered by the villagers.

The story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, is about the lives and traditions that the people, who live in a small town, take part in. Several of the other towns began to stop holding the annual “lottery,” however, the story focuses on a town who continues to hold a “lottery.” We later find out that the “lottery” was not a lottery at all. It was actually a tradition they had, in which they would draw a family’s name from a box, then they would make each of the members of that family draw form the box again and the person who drew a paper with a dot on it was the unlucky winner of the “lottery.” The prize for winning was death by stones and pebbles that the townspeople would throw at the winner.

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom” (Isaac Asimov). During the late 1940’s World War II, also known as the “Cold War” came to an end. The U.S faced major concerns such as the brutal reality of the war, the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. Leaving society not only clueless, but it had modeled them to become people who are willing to accept anything that does not affect them. Author Shirley Jackson who lived in a society which was facing the spread of communism and lacked women's rights, published “The Lottery”, in hope to convey several themes across to the people.

In short fiction, the characters experience conflicts that impact plot development. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the story had many conflicts one being when Tessie’s son had gathered rocks and started trying to kill his own mother. “The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.” (Jackson 7).

Have you read the lottery? They have to get together every year for a drawing. I will be telling you about how people feel about the lottery. They all have to get to go to the lottery, it’s in the summer and its some don’t want to the tradition to end. Why do they even do the tradition?

Cassie looked around her small house. It didn't feel like it was hers. There were no pictures on the walls, no knick knacks, no little personal touches. She'd been here almost a month and everything was just as bare as it had been. The furniture wasn't hers.