Use Of Foreshadowing In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Shirley Jackson’s shorty story “The Lottery”, is about a brutal tradition that is followed by a multiple villages. In this particular village, the tradition is much faster when comparing to other villages because it only has a population of three hundred people. The “lottery” starts off when the head of each house hold take a slip of paper from a black box then whichever family ends up getting the slip of paper with the black dot wins. Then the family has to get another drawing for each family member; and in which the wife wins. Because she won, the town sacrifices her by throwing stones at her until she dies.

In Lord of the Flies, it gives that suspense of terror to what’s happening during the chant of the savages and Simon, who’s trying to tell everyone the true identity of the beastie. This connects to the theme because foreshadowing can give the reader of sense of something interesting that gets them hook on the book and have the crave to learn about what is going to happen next, given the hints before the action

An example of when the authors using foreshadowing to create suspense is when Mr.White says" Hark at the wind, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from seeing it. " Part of the exposition is when they are playing chess, and Mr. Whites mistake he made during the chess game will display the same risks and mistakes he makes during

In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing to hint at the true purpose of the town meeting and the lottery. For example, when seemingly gathering stones playfully, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones and the other boys still follow his example… Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix … eventually made a great pile of stones in the corner of the square.” (Jackson) This quotation shows that the kids seem like they are gathering rocks for fun. It looks like they are just having fun since they are kids and that what you would expect.

Jackson’s “The Lottery” entails an appalling sacrificial ritual in a town of people who mindlessly obey this outdated event, despite that some towns have stopped this ritual. It draws parallels to how early civilizations used sacrifices to ensure the betterment of their group, or to eliminate sins. In some respects, it alludes to the Salem Witch Trials during the 1600’s in which Anne Hutchinson ostracized and “was banished to Rhode Island” (Chemeketa) for her then liberal ideals. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, she uses allegory, symbolism, and foreshadowing in order to convey the theme that groupthink and/or mob mentality can dangerously allow people to blindly follow tradition impulsively without questioning it ethically.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson explores the dangers of clinging to tradition and the its detrimental affects on the community it encompasses. Shirley Jackson uses suspense, foreshadowing and imagery to a make the reader aware of the dangers of clinging to forgotten and age old traditions. She continuously reminds us of how the towns people are blindly accepting of The Lottery and that they have allowed ritual murder to become part of their town celebrations. Murder isn’t something we should rejoice, about Shirley Jackson tries to express this to her the reader using a major plot twist, shocking us into understanding her purpose.

In The Giver by Lois Lowry, foreshadowing is a technique that is found throughout the book. One example of this is how Jonas is feeling apprehensive about the Ceremony of Twelve in December. This further foreshadows how the entire community is living in the disillison of day-to-day lives. When using foreshadowing, it makes the book more interesting and adds something extra to make readers feel more engaged in the book. Even in a book such as confusing as The Giver, Lois Lowry makes it interesting and when you read further in the next chapter, you know something that the characters don't know which adds suspense and darkness to the overall story.

Edgar Allen Poe once said, “A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.” All authors use many different methods to create the mood in a story. In stories authors use many different methods to illustrate mood in a story, Shirley Jackson, author of “The Lottery” uses foreshadowing and setting to create the mood while W.W Jacobs uses sound and diction in his story “The Monkeys Paw.” Finally, Joan Aiken uses foreshadowing and motifs to create the mood in her story, “The Third Wish” Foreshadowing is often used to create a dark feeling by hinting to future events. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing to set the dark, grimacing scene of the story.

Foreshadowing is used to make the reader feel suspense. Foreshadowing often gives the reader this feeling of curiousness or uneasiness by giving hints of an event that has happened or is going to happen but, never tell specifically what that event is. For instance, if the text states “As we flew to the scene in our helicopters, we could already see collapsed buildings and shattered windows. We could already tell that this would not be an easy day for the Red Cross.” , then I can infer that a natural disaster happened based on the fact that buildings were collapsed and windows were shattered.

The element of suspense     What is suspense ? a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen . Suspense interests the reader / viewer . Suspense makes you think what is going to happen . Suspense will have you wanting to know more of what is going to happen .

The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, was published on June 26, 1948 in an issue of “The New Yorker.” In Jackson’s short story, she uses suspense in many different strategies to create her theme in The Lottery .Some of the strategies that Jackson uses are foreshadowing, giving misleading information, and withholding information. The first way Shirley Jackson uses suspense to create her theme is by using foreshadowing. The first example of foreshadowing in The Lottery is before the lottery had started, the boys had made piles of stones. A quote from the story says, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones.

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

Right from the cover Jackson uses irony to catch the reader with a titling of “The Lottery”. Coupling that with the description and setting the event in the village square in the beginning of June sets the reader up for a warm inviting happy story. The use of some of the villagers names also play a role in both foreshadowing and irony, for instance Mr. Summers would generally make you think of summer time, bringing life to everything when actually this lottery is quite the opposite. Then there is Mr. Graves which plays into a little foreshadowing with the inevitable need for a grave by the lottery’s end. Mrs. Hutchinson has quite a bit of foreshadowing centered around her character, from being late and Mr. Summers mentioning about it being a shame if they had to start without her to her response of “wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe” (Jackson, 2016) with the implication they would be left longer than the couple hours it would take for the lottery.

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.

Foreshadowing means to hint towards the future, almost telling what is going to happen in the story. A great use of foreshadowing was in the story “the monkey’s paw”, a quote that was a great use of foreshadowing is “Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late”(Jacobs, 50). When Mr. White has noticed that he made a mistake but he was too late to notice it before it was too late. In the story, Mr. White made a wish, but due to not being specific enough in his wish after learning what would happen in the first wish, he wished for his son back but he didn't come back normally. He came back as the way he died, his body still ruined and mangled by the machine that killed him, almost zombie like.