Religious Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

500 Words2 Pages

The lottery is an extremely unique and emotion provoking story. The story is very fun to read, but can also leave you with nightmares because of its realistic nature. This story is based on religious tradition, and these types of things occur even today.
The author Shirley Jackson was born on December 14th, 1916, in San Francisco California. She was known for her more popular short stories such as; “The Lottery”, “Life Among Savages”, and “Hangsam”. Shirley Jackson wrote the lottery on a warm June day and only took two hours. Although many people hated it, and were very confused she never offered an explanation about what the deep meaning was. The short story “The Lottery,” is based in a small village in England. Once a year a so called “Lottery” is held, where one person will be stoned to death. They decide who the person …show more content…

The persons who family draws the white paper with a black dot on it is chosen. From there the whole family draws again, and the person who draws the black dot again is sentenced to stoning. The author, Shirley Jackson, uses names and object to conceal the true meaning of the lottery. A couple of these symbolic names are; Mr. Summer, and the story takes place in the summer. Mr. Summers assistant is Mr. Graves, which indicates there will be a summer grave. Objects in the story are also symbolic. The black box is the difference between life and death for every person in the village. The box represents the acts of evil committed in the past and the future. The stool is also a symbolic object in the story. The stool which has three legs which indicate the Christian Trinity. Each leg represents a different

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