Outdated And Modernized In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Jackson pushes the envelope by telling a story of a village that blindly follows social normalities and conforms to a system that is in all reality completely backwards and shows how a modern society can appropriate and conform to ideas that do not seem logical,right, or justifiable. In the beginning Jackson conveys a sense of security and normalness as the children play around before the commencement of the drawing Jackson writes “The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play. and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest

Conformity is a powerful and influential behavior that can drastically affect a society’s circumstances. The morality and wellbeing of the individuals’ in a society are shaped by the everyday traditions and customs of that culture. Shirley Jackson, an award-winning author for her works in horror and mystery, unveils the perturbing effect of conformity on a society and its people in her short story “The Lottery.” In her thought-provoking story, a village situated in a warm area of England prepares to partake in a traditional crop fertility ritual that involves a paper drawing to elect a ‘winner’ who will be stoned to death. The societal conformity to continue this brutal tradition causes the life of a person to be insensitively taken away each

Shirley Jackson’s famous story, “The Lottery” is a brutally descriptive story about how a small village participates in the annual lottery. All throughout the story, Jackson uses several literary devices to convey the meaning behind this town’s tradition. Normally when individuals think about a tradition, they visualize something positive. However, in “The Lottery”, tradition is illustrated as something unfortunate and deadly. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson shows the theme of the violence within a small village through symbolism to show that even the most ordinary people can commit violence, which can eventually lead to killing innocent individuals.

Jackson comes across the short story with her views of tradition being negative, by having an outdated tradition to choose weather they will live or die. The short story explains how the lottery works and how it happens every year and how people follow it blindly. Before the lottery was described it seemed harmless and safe. They choose a man that isn’t very great to be the leader of the so-called lottery.

They had been using that box since they started with “the lottery's” it was a tradition every time they finished with a lottery they were going to make a new box, but they never did. The black box faded and stained in some places. The black dot represents “death” when they get the black dot it means they won the lottery. “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it…” “All right, folks.” Mr. Summers said.

“Expectation feeds frustrations. It is an unhealthy attachment to people, things, and outcomes we wish we could control; but don’t“ by Dr. Steve Maraboli. “The Lottery“ is a short story written by Shirley Jackson, which talks about a village whose members have been taking part in a twisted ritual called “The Lottery” and it has been going on for decades.It takes place in an undistinguished village on a clear morning, June 27th and it’s described as an ordinary and pleasant community. "The Lottery" combines elements of horror, irony and tension, all of which are oftenly found separate different short stories. In Shirley Jackson's Short “ The Lottery“ she uses the Black Box as a symbol for ritual homicide as part of the villages community which

Sometimes, it even overpowers the very structure itself of the novella. Characters such as Candy, Crooks and Curley’s wife are all subjects to it. John Steinbeck himself was largely analysing the lifestyles of migrant workers, and while doing so, found inspiration for ‘Of Mice and Men’. He portrays his knowledge by isolating certain characters in the novella. The accuracy of his observations are perfect, as at that time – during the ‘Great Depression’ - people felt like they had to use what little power they had to uphold their position on the social hierarchy scale.

Imagine a society where killing somebody for the sake of a tradition is acceptable.In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson describes an ordinary village with normal people, but as the story progress the details of their yearly practice known as “the lottery” unravels to be more disturbing.The author subverts the readers’ expiations by persuading the reader into assuming “the lottery” is a ordinary tradition until unusual details and the behavior of the characters come into place. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric. Through her use of setting,

Old Man Warner expresses this desire for the lottery to not end when responding to the news of some villages stopping the lottery by saying, “ nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools.” Mr.Warner is basically saying it would be uncivilized to discontinue the lottery. This passage also refers to the fact that the younger generation is having thoughts of wanting to stop this tradition. Furthermore, many of the characters express their uneasiness with change, as Mr.Warner says, “There has always been a lottery.” This indicates the importance of tradition to the villagers. The Lottery, demonstrates the complex feelings of a community engaging in a ritual event, in which they feel obligated to participate in.

This is an interesting concept as it appears that no one in the village, not even the oldest man, has a good reason for when and why the lottery began. This symbol of tradition, Old Man Warner, is designed to show that even the man with the most experience and arguably most knowledge about the tradition, since he has gone through the lottery for 77 years, just blindly follows it because it has always been that way (Jackson 316). We see that even Warner is merely a victim of blind tradition as it is revealed that, “the original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago…before Old Man Warner,” showing that even Warner was not around when the tradition began. Warner, the symbol of tradition itself, is used by Jackson to reveal how even the most experienced people can still fall into blindly following established