Horror And Symbolism In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'

“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.

It was almost a way of life and if it was not followed there were dire consequences. The story starts to become ironic when specified what the lottery really means to them. A lottery, in any other community, is seen as a chance to win rewards that are in your favor. Within this town, it’s a chance to murder a single person every year. The main idea Jackson make in “The Lottery” is that people can come to together to perform this terrible act and then completely forget about.

While real life traditions are rarely so extreme, Jackson’s exaggerated fictional example emphasizes her point to great effect. By the end of the story, the audience is convinced that the town is wrong to uphold the lottery tradition, but Jackson is not really writing about a lottery; she is writing about how damaging it can

When the winner is selected for the lottery, the stones are used by the fellow villagers to throw them at the person. Each name of the characters hold a meaning for the lottery or one that indicates what the future of the unlucky winner will be. The lottery date is one of the main symbols of the short story. It is set for the reader to believe that the lottery is wonderful event like a nice summer day, instead

In 1948 a short story was featured in the magazine called The New Yorker. This story was named The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. This story is fictional and very fake. The story was based in a small village that has about 300 people in it.

Within this source it has a list of sub headings that cover symbolic meaning of the lottery, the lottery box, stoning and considering the authors background. The sub heading about the author Shirley Jackson provides me with some very crucial information around the long standing traditions of what the whole story really meant and the back ground of the author when she wrote this short story. Ironically Shirley Jackson was a women during the 1948 period in America. Which began to part the puzzle for me on the ideologies used in the story that contrasted America at that present time. For e.g. whether it was segregation, the lack of free voting rights or any of the many other traditions which still exist primarily because they have always existed.

Shirley Jackson is best known for her short story, “The Lottery.” It takes place in a small village of 300 people in New England, where the villagers blindly follow an old, bizarre tradition. The winner of lottery must be stoned to death as a custom of sacrifice. Although there is no reason to continue with this tradition, the villagers are afraid to dismiss it because the lottery is a huge part of their

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.

The author uses imagery as a facade to hide the true meaning of the lottery. For instance, in the first paragraph, the author, Shirley Jackson, describes the morning of June 27th as, "Clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming

also it seemed like she was trying to avoid showing up to the lottery .Therefore it is obvious that she doesn’t even want to be there which hints that there is something dark behind the Lottery. Jackson’s use of foreshadowing in “The Lottery” contributed to the story by hinting that there is something much darker and eerier than we expect about this village and its tradition of the

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”.

By incorporating dramatic irony into “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson is able to convey a sense of understanding and compassion towards the character. This first instance of dramatic irony is where Tessie is pleading to the town’s people that they were unfair to her husband. “People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly.

“The Lottery’s” opening lines read: “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. ”(Jackson 309). From this line, one can conclude that Jackson is trying to portray the village as a quaint and nice place where townsfolk gather, and no harm occurs. However, this strays far from the truth. As the story continues, the gathering abruptly changes and ultimately leads the townspeople to commit violence and murder.

“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).

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.