Attention In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Catherine A. Boateng English 101 Prof. Mattew Rockwood PAPER # 2 ‘The Lottery’ is a story of fiction that demonstrates revolution and allegiance while insinuating that a lottery is part of a ritualistic ceremony. It revolves around some misguided beliefs saying that the villagers would have good crops in the next year should they sacrifice one of their people. Most villagers believe that if they fail to make the sacrifice, they would not have good crops, and would experience challenging times. People gather around for a ritualistic drawing of names, however, the winner of the drawing will lose their life. In ‘Stone Throwing in India: an annual bash, it is Pandhurna tradition, where once a year a wildly exciting festival of distraction-

Things that came in my mind one of them is Motivation. Villagers continue to kill other villagers because they are so proud about their rituals and they don’t want to go against the authority because Villagers are the one who choose it. I think they story is trying to say that you should protest against the authority when authority is wrong. It’s like a democracy. People just go along with other group of

Shawn Jande Ms. Clancy American Literature B3 15 November 2015 The Crucible Analytical Essay Imagine, being accused of a crime you didn’t commit by your neighbors and friends out of jealousy, and desire. This is what many people in the town of Salem had to go through during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. People's motives such as: gaining and maintaining power, and aspirations for what other people had caused them to make irrational, and atrocious decisions. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, desire and power drive characters to create chaos in the community.

She does this by creating a lottery in her story that nobody wants to win because the "winner" ends up being sacrificed for the town. What makes this story so ironic is that most of the time, when one thinks of a lottery, they would want

Why does an individual follow a blind tradition in hopes of achieving “sameness” with the public eye or society? One is unconsciously trained to follow mindless tradition without knowing what it’s deeper meaning is. “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, represents a long lost sacrifice ritual, now morphed into a blind tradition that people follow. A fictional village struggles with this concept, holding a voluntary “lottery” every year, where the “winner” is stoned to death. The villagers hold the lottery because they believe that the crops will be bountiful in the event that they do as such.

I have often wondered if the Devil be in it somewhere; I cannot understand you people otherwise.” (Miller, 30) His dislike influenced other people of the village to question Parris’s authority such as Giles Corey. His death had the most influential impact on the village because when he passed away, Parris and the trials are overthrown which may signify his impact on the society. This frees the next generations of the corrupt minister and the unjust

Notwithstanding his daughter’s “sickness”, Parris predominantly worries that his “ministry’s at stake” (20) as he “cannot have anyone” discover “such corruption” of witchcraft in his house (21, 22). To avoid this “disastrous charge”, Parris perpetuates Abigail’s “deceit” in accusing the innocent, transposing to the audience the destructive

This quote supports the thesis because they all are greedy and do not care about the next person; all they want is good times. Warner is extremely sticky about the tradition that he fears the villagers will return to bad times if they stop holding the lottery. But, killing should not be tolerated at any time not matter what the circumstances are. Big

For example, after Tessi is shown with the black dot, Mr. Summers says “All right folks,... Let's finish quickly.” This shows that Mr.Summers’ mind is crumbling after being the one who is controlling the black box, did not hesitate when telling others to stone Tessi. The others were not hesitant to go and stone her if anything they gave a rock to her own son. The black box and the tradition of the lottery have caused crumbling minds.

For example John Proctor wanted to confess to the charge of witchcraft, in order to save his life a long with his wife’s. Even though he wanted to live he refused to confess and ruin the names of the accused. He did this because he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of condemning someone’s life. Another example would be Reverend Hale’s guilt of condeming Innocent lives to death. He then tried to get Proctor to sign the papers because Proctor could then survive.

Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” tells us how the people of the town get together on June twenty seventh every year to perform a ritual that was started back in the day by their ancestors. The children would gather to the town square first and start piling up rocks in a corner. After the children the men would show up and then the women would show up last. Mr. Summers would call each family in alphabetic order to draw a slip of paper from the box, for the ritual. Once everyone had a piece of paper in their hands, they would look at the slips, who ever had the black dot got stoned to death.

Can an author blind the audience from the ability to predict the outcome of a story by using the power of tone? In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the author starts with a tone of anticipation, changes the tone to one of hesitation, and completes the piece of literature in a subtly depressing tone. By using this literary tactic, the author confuses the audience, and at the same time draws more attention and interest to the piece. Starting when, “The people of the village began to gather in the square,” the tone of anticipation presents itself in the text. This phrase appears in the first paragraph of the article.

The people of a small town gather in the town square on June 27 for the town’s lottery. The story states that the lottery takes longer in other towns, but because there are only 300 people in this village, it only takes two hours. The children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around gathering stones. The children make a pile with the stones in the town square while keeping some in their pockets. While one might think, this story ends with someone winning money from the lottery, but it ends with the winner getting stones thrown at.

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.