Conflict And Controversy In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

In this short story, written by Shirley Jackson, the townspeople have somewhat of violent “tradition”. The people participate in this process called stoning where someone is randomly beaten to death by stones. Shirley doesn't specifically say why they do this or why it is still happening but she does drop hints. Now, here are some theories why.

“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts off with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers holds the lottery. Once everyone gathers, every family draws a slip of paper out of an old black box, and the family with the black mark on their paper gets picked. After that, each family member older than 3 years of age re-draws a slip of paper again and this time, the person with the black mark on their paper gets picked as the “lucky winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery, with her reward is being stoned to death. Why would such a cruel event take

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.

In “The Lottery”, there is talk of right or wrong, just tradition and standard. Discuss what this may mean and how it acts as a metaphor for other outdated or outmoded cultural practices.

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize. It’s a beautiful summer day and everything seems perfect, but as the reader keeps reading they come to realize that this story is not as simple and straight forward as the title suggest, rather it is a horrifying and dark tale. Shirley Jackson is forwarding the theme on tragic it can be to blindly follow traditions by using foreshowing, symbolism, and dialog.

“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). In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses characterization, symbolism and themes to develop the action of the short story.

“The Lottery" is a verdict of depraved tradition of a community. The story surrounds a town where the lottery is drawn every year as a sacrifice ritual one 's life for a good fertile crop. The lottery rose up public opinions when it first published in 1948. It is a piece of Shirley Jackson in which she wrote about inhumanity and violence among human based on her real experience when she moved to a small town and was rejected by its people. Shirley Jackson always believed in sinful spirit within each individual self as her writing style portrayed the vicious side of her and people 's souls, “The dark current of awareness of evil that runs through her life and work seems too strong to have as its sole root the observance of suburban hypocrisy” (Judy Oppenhaimer). This short story shows that the author has been mastered the art of foreshadowing, symbolism and irony by her diction, narration and the shocking revealed at the end.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is an account of a tradition gone awry. In this short story the villagers of this town have a tradition where they have a “lottery” to see who gets stoned to death. The characterization and symbolism used in the story makes the reader feel as if society has crumbled with the inhumane tradition that ultimately lost its meaning. Throughout the story, Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to imply a message to society about the meaning of tradition. Through the use of characterization and symbolism Jackson establishes that blindly following traditions can be hazardous

In short fiction, the characters experience conflicts that impact plot development. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the story had many conflicts one being when Tessie’s son had gathered rocks and started trying to kill his own mother. “The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.” (Jackson 7). This issue had shown a conflict when Davy was influenced by the other children to violently hurt and kill his mother who he loved. This impact the story because Davy and the citizens of the town had caused Tessie to die. In another short story, “Thank You M’am” by Langston Hughes, the story also had many conflicts was when both Mrs.Jones and Roger couldn’t have what they wanted. “The woman

Conformity can make people do cruel things without reason. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” highlights a village that continues a senseless tradition of stoning the winner of a lottery. Although all the villagers initially seemed innocuous and welcoming, as soon as the winning ticket was drawn, everybody quickly turned against the winner, Mrs. Hutchinson. Through a stark, cold tone, Jackson brings attention to the dangers of unquestionable loyalty to old traditions.

‘The Lottery’ is a story about tradition and sacrifice. However, even though the NY times article is about sacrifice, they are for different things. Such as money vs. good luck. ‘The Lottery’ talks about this small, peaceful village that have no problems and has mainly positive dialogue. But this village has this really weird tradition. This tradition is based on a lottery. There would be this lottery and every family has their name on it by force since it is a tradition and the family that gets picked would have to do another lottery to see which one in the family dies. To know which person in the family dies every person in the family gets a paper and the paper with the black dot dash. In the lottery someone picks out a family name and the family name that year was the Hutchinsons. The Hutchinsons were pretty mad and mostly Tessie Hutchinson, who started shouting that this is unfair. Then they proceeded to the final lottery, which was the one based on who will die. Every person in the family got a paper and the person with the black dot was Tessie Hutchinson, who then started shouting this is unfair and everyone started throwing rocks at her until she died. The whole story is ironic itself because the tone of the story is a place that’s perfect. The dialogue is mainly positive. The title “The Lottery” also gives the reader a positive perception of the story, that the lottery is a contest, not an execution, but it is in fact an execution at the end. In the article it talks

Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery was published in the 1940’s, yet its’ take on blind faith and tradition has relevance today. The short story opens with what the narrator describes as a “sunny and clear” day, June 27th to be exact. The citizens of a small village begin to gather in the village square to partake in a tradition of what is called the “lottery.” Some show excitement for the day’s events, others seemingly go about the motions; one character is stated to nearly have forgotten the day altogether. We first notice signs of hesitation toward the lottery when Mr. Martin and his son, Baxtar hesitate to step forward to help Mr. Summers, the leader of the ceremony, steady the stool the black box holding the lottery remains on. In the moments

Within “The Lottery,” author Shirly Jackson embeds the theme of blindly accepting traditions as illustrated by the actions of the villagers. For example, the Lottery is presented as an event that has always occurred throughout the region's history. Likewise, the author states multiple times that parts of the traditional Lottery have changed unnoticed by the villagers. Finally, the “murder” of Tessie Hutchinson is nonchalantly committed by the entire village.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is a short story expressed through the theme of apathy, when the community feels no emotion for anyone, that a ritual is more important than a human being, mob mentality, and hypocrisy which is prevalent within the townspeople. It may help learning more about Shirley Jackson to better understand why she wrote such a horrific story like, “The Lottery.” Shirley Jackson moved into a small town, Bennington, Vermont, where she wasn’t accepted within her town which shows she was thinking how cruel people can be. Not being accepted is not the same as being stoned or killed, but it has the capacity for cruelty. Through this, Shirley Jackson is suggesting that we need to examine ourselves and our actions carefully and live our lives consciously instead of

This essay contends that the convention of the lottery speaks to the discriminatory stratification of the social order along lines of gender and financial position. The story sets put in a residential community in New England. Consistently a lottery is held, in which one individual is to be randomly decided to be stoned to death by the individuals in the town. The lottery has been practiced in excess of seventy years by the townspeople. By utilizing imagery, Jackson uses names, items, and the setting to hide the genuine importance and expectation of the lottery.