The Lottery Rhetorical Analysis

In contrast, the villagers are reaching the black box “humourlessly” and “nervously” with hesitation as the paper took out of the box. Moreover, the fact that the villagers “beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads” when they got a blank piece of paper, drives the reader to wonder the unusual fact of the lottery behind the box.

In both stories "The Lottery" and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" shows that different tone, setting and literary elements. "The Lottery" and Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" are two short stories that use different ways to get to the same purpose, which would be a dark, disturbing place. Both stories are very dark, and sinister, but one story keeps the person who reads unaware to the tragic event that is being set up, while the other story lays it out very clearly and without a doubt for the reader to believe from the beginning. In “The Lottery,” Jackson demonstrates a feeling of harmony and easiness.

In all books authors use figurative language to create suspense and get the reader interested. In “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, a small village gets together on June 27th every year to do the “lottery.” Generally people think of the lottery as being a good thing. In this book, however; if you win you die. One member of each family in the village must walk up to a black box alphabetically, select a piece of paper, and return to their spots.

The black box is the manifestation of such conformity. It is described as old and worn, but the villagers do not want to “upset events as tradition as was represented by the black box.” (The Lottery, pg. 222) It was long used, and the villagers believed that some of the pieces from the original lottery box were used to create that one. The symbolism Jackson uses is relative to life while the symbolism that D. H. Lawrence uses in “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” is purely fictional.

Jackson allows the readers to think that this event is a joke because these kids are picking certain stones for an upcoming murderous event and to see that the children are easily following the elders’ steps. Another example would be “the black box” and the black spot on the “fatal slips of paper”. The description of these two objects is very symbolic to death and evil. Starting of with the box, it’s described as being_ “splintered badly,… and in some places faded or stained” which symbolizes the individuals family falling apart due to the fact of the death of the person. The black spot on the “fatal slips of paper” represent darkness and evil since the color of the dot is black and it also symbolizes the person who gets stoned to death during the lottery next.

In “The Lottery”, there are many scenarios which turn out to be ironic. This includes the setting and actions of the characters in the story. This irony is done to shock and surprise the reader about how the story ends. At the beginning, the setting is described to be very welcoming, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day” (Jackson). This quote from “The Lottery” shows how the author used beautiful imagery to convey a positive mood and scenario to start off the story.

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is a short story about a villages tradition of a lottery that leads to the death of a town member. Jackson uses literary elements such as symbolism throughout the story to convey the message of how cruel people in a society can be towards each other. In "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson uses symbolism of a Tessie Hutchinson, black box, and Old Man Warner to strengthen the theme of tradition and corruption within human society.

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

Symbolism in stories is used to represent an idea or a concept that differs from their literal meaning. Shirley Jackson utilizes symbolism within her short story "The Lottery" which takes place in a small town of 300 people, who are preparing for a lottery to occur. Jackson's use of symbolism is supposed to show us that not all tradition is positive and leaves us content. Jackson displays the dark side of tradition within "The Lottery" by using symbols such as the characters behaviors, the black wooden box, and the stones. Throughout the story, we are introduced to a variety of characters each of whom gives the reader a queasy feeling.

“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. It was originally published in 1948. This is a few years after the end of World War Two, which probably influenced Jackson into writing this short story. “The Lottery “was very different from anything that had been published in America up to this point. Shirley Jackson incorporated a couple of themes into the story that she felt, needed to be exposed so society could better itself.

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

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.

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

“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.