Comparing Symbolism In The Lottery, Harrison Bergeron And Two B

One of the ways Jackson uses literary technique is with Irony, and foreshadowing. People who hear “The Lottery” assume that the person or people who win the lottery will win a prize of some sort, such as money. However, on the contrary, the winner of this lottery gets murdered. Jackson hints throughout the story that the ending of the story will not be as civilized as the reader may think. “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed” (Jackson 1).

The most obvious example of irony in “The Lottery” is in the title of the story itself. When people think about the lottery, it is usually about winning a reward or a prize, and definitely not about being stoned to death. Shirley Jackson’s intention to name the title of this story as “The Lottery”, gives the readers an idea that someone will receive a reward. In fact, at the end of the story, the readers eventually realize that the reward is not what they think it’s going to be but rather a completely opposite thing. The second example of irony is in the setting of the story.

Lottery Winners When a person buys a scratch ticket, or a powerball ticket, their hope is that they will win the lottery. If a person wins the lottery, one could claim up to 1.5 billion dollars. Imagine what someone could do with all of that money. There are so many possibilities of great things to do with such a reward and one would be extremely happy to win the lottery. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, winning the lottery is not something to be happy about.

Symbolism of Two In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, both authors use symbols to help carry out the main purpose of the story to the readers. Each story is used through symbolism that helps comprehend both stories that different from one another by one being about love and the other being the lack of love. "The Lottery" is based on a woman named Mrs. Hutchinson, who wins the lottery and protest that it is unfair as she is being stoned to death. " The Rocking Horse Winner" is about a woman who dreams of living a luxurious lifestyle and doesn’t care for her children.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is one short story that just about anyone could understand. It starts off as a simple village where everyone knows everyone, but once a year a person's life would be taken because of their dark tradition. However, the reader is unaware of the true depth of the horrible ritual until the end of the story. Instead, as they are reading, they have this continuous sense of foreboding. One of the key aspects of the story that helped to support the building dread the readers feel was the symbolism found throughout the story.

“The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, is a short story about how villagers from a small town partake in a cruel tradition. They believe that they will have a bountiful harvest if they sacrifice one of their own. Throughout this story there is symbolism that shows how the tradition is kept, their fear of change, and things to come. This is shown through objects, dialogue, and even names. The villagers’ fear of the unknown stops them from changing this tradition, so it becomes a norm in their society.

Everyone has those family traditions that they follow blindly, but in most cases everyone’s family tradition does not result in a dead family member or friend. In the story ‘The Lottery” a small village town has an annual lottery that they host every year that results in one dead member of their village. They choose their winner by gathering all the towns people’s names into a black box and drawing first a family from the town and then a member from within that family. In the film known as The Hunger Games, the people of Panem also follow the annual tradition of a lottery where the winners die. Although both stories share similar properties such as symbolism, they differ when it comes to the society and protagonists of each one.

Symbolism can be explained in many ways and various things can be used to symbolize something. Symbolism is also used to show emotions or the way someone is explaining something. Foreshadowing is an example of symbolism because it’s like thinking back at a time that once happened in the past, symbolizing memories of what happened during that time. For example the color black in “The Lottery” symbolizes death, therefore there’s death in the short story.

Many people go through their lives celebrating traditions year after year because it is what they were trained to do by others; during Christmas they kiss underneath mistletoe, during Thanksgiving they carve turkey’s, and come Halloween they adorn costumes as they beg for candy throughout their neighborhoods. While these traditional rituals, on the surface, appear to be harmless enjoyment, there are secrets hidden behind each of them, buried through years of alterations, omissions, and additions which can prove harmful to one’s soul and are therefore worthy of investigation. Similarly, Shirley Jackson brilliantly writes a terrifying short story, offering an awakening to her audience as she takes them into a ghastly village, hidden behind a euphoric façade, where ignorance is not always bliss. Written and appearing in the New Yorker in 1948, the story represents the average person who is programed to stroll through traditions, blindly adhering to rituals, of which carry no real meaning, beyond habit, to the characters. Brilliantly authored, as Jackson meticulously chooses to use informal concrete diction as she creates a setting which represents an everyday Early American town, engaging her readers into the characters ordinarily free mannered conversations through the unshifting and impartial tone of an objective third-person point-of-view narrator, and by using syntax to perfectly progress the story which creates shifts in mood ranging from serenity to disbelief, the eerie tale draws readers in with an exceptional sense of suspense.

Winning is one of the greatest feelings, whether it is in a sport or just a life goal. Not everything in life is what is seems. But old traditions are not always best to follow. In the Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery. Shirley Jackson starts off with a little village coming together in the main plaza for the town’s lottery.