Darkness And Symbolism In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The short story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, the plot in the story that it only gives people an account of drawing lots to determine the winner who shall be stoned to death for harvest. However, we get a deep impression of the characters and their fate after reading the story. Jackson indicated a prevalent theme, the indirect of characterization and using symbolism and irony to modify this horror story.

Shirley Jackson’s fictitious story entitled “The Lottery” is an allegorical writing piece of societal rituals and traditions as well as how these rituals affect both social and political cultures. Although Jackson presents her literary work as a somewhat simplistic story about a village that holds an annual lottery every summer, the themes governing the story’s plot delve a deeper analysis regarding the effects and consequences of a structure government on its citizens. In a traditionalism society, the lottery is conducted in a way that illustrates the hierarchy of an organization of people controlled by principles. For example, the people in the village are divided due to their role and purpose of the lottery. Nowhere in the story does any

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” , a small village gathers in the village square for a traditional event that suddenly awakens the reader in the end. The reader is not aware of the nature of the villagers and is mislead by the meaning of the story, eventually giving the reader a clear view of what the nature of humanity is actually like. Jackson surprises the reader in order to convey a truth about human nature. Irony, symbolism and foreshadowing are used to covey the story’s message that humans tend to rationalize their brutal behavior.

Many current customs can be traced back hundreds of years. Sometimes these traditions change over time, often so much so that the details or even the original purpose can be forgotten. In her short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson points out how even modern will participate in rituals that can range from foolish to barbaric in the name of antiquated cultural customs whose details and very purpose has long been forgotten.

The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is the foundation for dystopian fiction.”Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones”(Jackson 7).They did not care if the box was lost or about the ritual they just remembered they were supposed to kill who ever got drawn out of a bowl or box to throw stones at them.This piece of evidence shows dystopian because no one would ever be able to do that without going to jail or killed.Another piece of evidence is when they started to throw the stone as said, “A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone"(Jackson 7).This quote means that when the girl got picked for the tradition

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 11th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2012] 278-285) is quite ironic in its presentation. The nameless narrator in the story leads the reader into making an observation that supports the title; however, the story ends up in a turmoil that baffles the reader; leading to a change in ideas that were developed earlier. The story gives a false sense of harmony by its setting and how Jackson describes the preparation for the lottery, this leads to a misconception that the tradition is jovial.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is an amazing fiction short story. This story is highly focused on symbolism, imagery, and allegory. These three literary devices are what make this story as successful and impactful as it is. This profound impact of symbolism is more immediate and keeps readers interested throughout the story. It does not take much creative thought to connect the objects in the story and how they foreshadow their use. This story is quite morbid and has dark symbolism to support its twisted plot. In fact, this story relies heavily on this literary element.

Summary: In this short selection by Shirley Jackson, three hundred villagers gather around in the middle of their local postal office and bank in commencement of the lottery. A group of children are told to collect stones for their parents, as they wait for them to call back. Shortly the event then begins. The head of the household in each village family was brought forward. Their task was to select a slip of paper from a black box.Then, they were to each open their slip. The winner is announced, when the wife of the winning family immediately Protests the decision. Standing in the middle of the crowd, the wife raises hers arms in despair, as she is pelted with stones.

Laws are set in order for society to function; however, when the boundaries of law are pushed to extreme lengths they can cause more harm than good. Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” illustrates rules putting society at risk. This can be shown through formally analyzing the narrative elements within the text. By examining key aspects of the plot along with multiple characters Jackson implements the message of rules and tradition being corrupt.

The violence of human nature constantly shows throughout literature. In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the stoning of young women resembles the witch trials of the 1700s. The town in the story seems to be normal, friendly place where everybody knows everybody. However, it is a place where a barbaric ritual of stoning takes place. Throughout the story, Shirley Jackson creates a sense of normality, ending with a conclusion that has both suspense and foreshadowing. The secrets, traditions and immoral behaviors in the town prove the point that society's basest instincts are ones of compulsion and destruction place. The violence and suspense littered throughout the story prove that human nature is one of fight or flight.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” tells the story of a village during midsummer participating in a ritual that is done every year without question; while this village is trying to become a modern town, it also cannot deal with the changing of the times. The result of this unquestioned ritual is the death of one of the village people as a sacrifice for the entire village’s “benefit”. Many details in this story, such as the time the story is set, the props used during the ritual, the condition of the sacrifices, and the names of the townspeople, illustrate the symbolism intertwined in a story about a ritualistic, but modernizing town.

One can see that by examining the symbolism of the setting and the irony of a welcoming setting Shirley Jackson's The Lottery is not an archetypal horror story. Firstly one could argue against the statement that, The Lottery is not and an archetypal horror story’ but without the knowledge of The Lottery being a horror story one could most certainly fall victim to Shirley Jackson's alluring descriptions. Upon examining the quote “The morning of July 27th was clear and sunny with a fresh warmth of a full summer day” one could infer this more as a adventuring and coming of age story than a horror, it comes off as endearing more than horror, although it may have been intended that way. Further investigation of the story may push one to believe

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is about a lottery held in a small town. The lottery took place in New England around World War II. The lottery was held each year resulting with a stoned death. The lottery was not the average lottery in today’s world held in the United States. Shirley Jackson uses symbolic names, tradition, and the era of the storyline to explain the true meaning of the lottery.

Shirley Jackson was a short story writer and novelist; however, she was also a loner and an introvert. Shirley was born on December 14, 1916 in San Francisco, CA. Jackson and her family moved East when she was 17, were she attended Rochester University. After doing a year, she dropped out of school, stayed at home for a year and began practicing on her writing. Jackson entered Syracuse University in 1937, where she met her future husband. Stanley Edgar Hyman, who was at the time also attending Syracuse University, and was an aspiring literary critic. Both Jackson and Hyman graduated in 1940 and moved to New York’s Greenwich Village.

Brave New World is a novel written on 1931 by Aldous Huxley. “The Lottery”by Shirley Jackson was written on June 26, 1948 . In “The Lottery” and Brave New World, they depict two different societies that will continue indefinitely on their own path because of their own traditions without concern about what other societies think.