ipl-logo

The Lottery And Barn Burning Analysis

1987 Words8 Pages

The View of Perception
There are many unmistakable parallels between the two-short story’s “The Lottery” and “Barn Burning.” “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson and takes place in a small town in America. The lottery is an annual ritual where all the families get together, the man of each family takes a paper with the possibility of that being marked which then means someone in the family will die. That is to say, a villager winning the lottery results in the other villagers stoning he or she to death. William Faulkner wrote the short story “Barn Burning.” Not to mention, the story starts off in a courtroom because Abner Snopes burned down the property of Mr. Harris. Mr. Harris is landowner, who is left with a burned barn and no legal option. Snopes is advised to leave the country because the court can’t find enough evidence to sentence him. His son Sarty Snopes chooses to warn the owner. “Barn Burning” offers a helpful picture of how Faulkner sees the economics of the postbellum South, where the poor whites remain the underclass rivals of black sharecroppers (Pierce). …show more content…

They also show the negative and, typically unexpected, effects of perception. The fact that society and family plays the key factor in both short stories shows us how both can help you understand the things that society has defined as wrong. Which goes to show that following a ritual can be a bad thing, to the villagers in “The Lottery” it is normal to sacrifice a person and in “Barn Burning,” Abner think’s it’s okay burn down barns, but we do not see it that way because of that key factor. Consequently, everything we see and choose or judge is completely up to our perception. These shared themes all go to prove that when something is both morally and ethically wrong, it will most likely

Show More
Related

  • Interpretive Essay: The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    520 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Barn Burning And The Veldt

    441 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everyone is raised differently from the minute they are born. These differences range from small to extreme actions. There are little things like learning how to read or bigger things like being raised to believe in a higher power. Some children are disciplined by word or with a physical action. Everything varies from the very start.

    Read More

  • The Lottery Tradition Analysis

    569 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many people would die to win the lottery; in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you would do anything NOT to win this lottery. This annual lottery reveals the negative aspects of this town’s Tradition, Savagery, Barbarism, and cold-heartedness. In this paper I will show why this town blindly follows these customs, not because it’s a tradition but because of the accepting wickedness that can be shown. Why does the town follow this foolish tradition? Throughout “The Lottery” the narrator tells that the people do not remember how the lottery began, and that some of the older people believe the lottery has changed over the years, that now people just want to get it over with as fast as possible.

    Read More

  • What Is Abner Snopes A Static Character

    885 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Williams Faulkner's Barn Burning, Abner Snopes was a poor tenant farmer with four children and a wife. He is a man who terrifies his family and controls them with violence. Abner uses his family for help in burning down barns of people of a higher class who offend him. He believes that the upper-class must be punished since they use poor people like him to do their work. He struggles to take care of his family because he is poor, so he hates people of the higher class who look down on him.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Lottery And Haircut

    784 Words  | 4 Pages

    The lottery winner is selected by the town mayor by selecting wood chips from a box with the names of the town residents engraved into them. Although winning the lottery in our reality is something one would like to do, in the short story, the consequence of winning is being stoned to death. The residents of the town agree that one life must be sacrificed annually to produce a decent crop yield. Both short stories have several traits, including themes, settings, and literary devices. This raises the question of

    Read More

  • Sarty Snopes In William Faulkner's Barn Burning

    1666 Words  | 7 Pages

    William Faulkners “Barn Burning was published in 1939 and is set in the Old American South at around 1897. Faulkner’s short story focusses on the Snopes families daily struggles and is told from the perspective of what seems to be an older version of Sarty Snopes himself speaking in third person. William Faulkner uses real issues such as social class, poor economy, gender equality and race relations throughout “Barn Burning” in order to help his reader understand the anger, hardships, family dynamic and erratic rebellion of Abner Snopes and his family as they struggle with the acceptance of emancipation and feelings of being oppressed by southern society. William Faulkner grew up on a plantation during the 1900s.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Lottery And Harrison Bergeron

    368 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Lottery and Harrison Bergeron, both share common themes and differences in their stories. One would be that both societies claim theses “traditions give them unity and equality”. Another theme commonly shared is both stories show how people can be blind to tradition. Although these stories are similar they have their differences one being Harrison Bergeron tried dyeing like a martyr while Ms. Hutchinson died trying to save her own life. In both of theses stories society believes that their barbaric traditions bring them equality and unity.

    Read More

  • Symbolism And Realism In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    1031 Words  | 5 Pages

    The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story of horror and realism. On June 27th on a late summer morning, the villagers of a small New England village gatherd together in the town square to conduct their annual lottery. There is a black box on a stool and in the box there is pieces of paper in the box. Each person from a family get one paper from the black box even the children get a piece of paper and every stayed quiet and nervouse. Then Bill Hutchinson looked at the paper and notice that he got the black dot.

    Read More

  • Tradition In 'The Lottery And Bloodflowers'

    645 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both the stories depict the theme of the dangers of blindly following traditions as it can lead to the demise if innocent people. In both stories, the townspeople aimlessly follow their annual traditions because they are accustomed to the event. In “The Lottery”, Mr. Adams

    Read More

  • Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Lottery

    322 Words  | 2 Pages

    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”.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Social Conformity In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    950 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The Lottery,” a short story written by Shirley Jackson, takes place in a small, simple town. The main characters are Tessi, Bill, Old Man Warner, and Mr. Summers. This town is very strict to tradition. Annually this town holds a “Lottery”, is actually a drawing where people get stoned. Not everyone gets stoned to death.

    Read More

  • The Lottery Argumentative Essay

    691 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout centuries, traditions and rituals have had the ability to control one’s behavior. In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, she tells the reader of a small village. On the surface, this community may seem relatively normal. However, despite the picturesque appeal, this falsely serene village has a distinct deceitful flaw. On June 27th, every year, a lottery takes place.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Sacrifice In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    464 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although many who read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” believe it to be about a crazy town viciously slaughtering an innocent woman for the ritualized sacrifice to bring them a feastful harvest of corn, it very clearly demonstrates Jackson’s hope to educate readers of the horrors of society’s blind following using social conformity, tradition, and general acceptance. The story starts at around 10 o’clock a.m. on June 27, and children are stacking rocks. The whole town gathers around and picks one piece of paper per family, out of an old black box.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Irony In The Lottery

    1191 Words  | 5 Pages

    The short story “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson. This story takes place in a small village where everybody knows each other. In this story all the villagers gather around town for their annual lottery. Everyone in the village is compelled to follow this tradition even if the outcome ends up with someone dying. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses conflict, theme, and irony to develop this suspenseful short story.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Irony In Barn Burning

    448 Words  | 2 Pages

    In two southern short stories “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner, and “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, the main characters resolve conflicts in an ironic manner. In “ Father’s and Son’s: The Spiritual Quest in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, Oliver Billingslea briefly discusses the irony within Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”. Irony in a persistent theme within southern gothic literature. In Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” Sarty choses to solve his problems through defiance, his rebellion can be seen as a replication of his father’s, the very thing he is resentful of.

    Read More

More about The Lottery And Barn Burning Analysis

Open Document