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. Jackson starts the story with antiquated characters that contribute to the blunt tone.
What I learnt from the source was how the lottery doesn’t just use the standardize irony that is generally recognized by the audience. But in particular, Shirley Jackson uses dramatic irony. We are proposed by dramatic irony from the start of story. Before I had even read the story, I assumed that this would be one of those happy/cheesy stories with that amazing “Disney Pixar” ending where everyone lives happy and a good life. And I was yet to be proven wrong when I began reading the story as Shirley Jackson presented the setting as a beautiful day and everything seemed to be going smoothly.
By incorporating dramatic irony into “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson is able to convey a sense of understanding and compassion towards the character. This first instance of dramatic irony is where Tessie is pleading to the town’s people that they were unfair to her husband. “People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly.
Tessie puts her own daughter under the bus in attempt to save herself. It is revealed that Tessie knew it was not a possibility when Mr. Summers asserts that is not an option and that Hutchinson “know(s) that as well as anyone else.” (Jackson 4). The clarification and correction by Mr. Summers emphasizes Tessie Hutchinson’s egotistical persona and reveals her dramatic attempt to save herself at the risk of losing her own daughter. Shirley Jackson characterizes Tessie Hutchinson as an insurgent, dominating, egotistical person in her short story, “The Lottery”. Jackson successfully creates this image through diction, imagery, and juxtaposition.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson It creates a sense of suspense and shock to everyone who reads it and is considered an all time great. In her story she develops this suspense by the use of irony, imagery, and foreshadowing to develop her theme. One device that Shirley uses in her story is the use of irony. Right off the back she adds situational irony when she says “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny.” This is ironic because the weather was portrayed as happy and pleasant summer day but the actual event that goes down is horrific and dark. Jackson then introduced a character named Mr. Summers, in paragraph four, who was described as “round face, jovial man.” This is ironic for two reasons, one being that his last name is Summers and that is usually thought to be a pleasant and fun time.
The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, was published on June 26, 1948 in an issue of “The New Yorker.” In Jackson’s short story, she uses suspense in many different strategies to create her theme in The Lottery .Some of the strategies that Jackson uses are foreshadowing, giving misleading information, and withholding information. The first way Shirley Jackson uses suspense to create her theme is by using foreshadowing. The first example of foreshadowing in The Lottery is before the lottery had started, the boys had made piles of stones. A quote from the story says, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones.”(291). The children collecting the stones foreshadows that something bad will happen.
This shows that the villagers were nervous when the lottery began. Another quote to suggest the crowd grew nervous was when Mr. Adams was called upon, “They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously”. She described what the characters were doing and not what their thoughts or intentions were. Shirley Jackson intensified the feeling when Tessie hysterically protested Bill’s “winning” selection, by withholding information until the last possible second, she builds the story’s suspense and creates a shocking, powerful conclusion. In conclusion, The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson builds up suspense by foreshadowing the horrible moment through the children who felt uneasy and collected rocks, creating a character that stands out from the crowd, Tessie Hutchinson, the person who saved her husband but could not save herself.
According to Jonathan Michael’s article in Relavent Magazine, our faith to the world has been shaking through series of tragidies and terrible events such as 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Iraq War, the economic recession, the Herricane Sandy, the Newtown shooting, the Boston Marathon attack...ect. Thus, the hero character does not reflect the true of the society we live. In the readers’ perspective, Jackson Jackson is model of the anti-hero character, and the believable and relatable character is one of the enjoyable stories to
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. Secrecy is one of the prevailing themes in the story. The town keeps the lottery hidden and does not let the outside world see their terrible secret.
In my opinion, I feel like these 3 literary elements did have quite an effect on “The Lottery” because it made the story interesting with the different tones and the symbols Jackson used throughout it. I would recommend this story to friends because it was a shocking and exciting story by Shirley Jackson. It was shocking and exciting because when you’re the reader, in the beginning, it seems like the family is going to win so much money, until later, they end up drawing to see who is going to be the one to die and that person ends up getting killed by stones by every