Symbolism And Irony In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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.

While Mr. Summers speaks frequently of change, whether it be trading the old shabby box for a new one or replacing the wood chips with slips of paper, he seems to never be appreciated of. On the other side “ Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers.” , the symbolism behind Mr. Graves writing all those paper sheets describes how death sets up traps for the innocent to fall into, and eventually they will be in the arms of death itself. “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 a small village in the middle of nowhere and seems to be just like any normal village around the world. 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 creates expectations throughout the town, promoting opinions and questioning each

The themes I discussed link with those most poignant throughout Mary Shelley 's ‘Frankenstein’; and include injustice, morality, fate, and judgment. Themes of injustice are prominent throughout, in more than one way. Legal injustice is explored after Justine is trialed for the murder of Henry, and overall “wretched mockery of justice”, is represented in my story with the ruling on the ethics board, which allowed the main character, who was guilty, to be free. Additionally, social injustice is evident when the monster is beaten by the villagers, which I mirrored in the speech of the ‘creation’ who had only been treated poorly his entire life and only created to “satisfy the selfish needs of man”. The setting of the ethics board encapsulated another common theme of judgment and morality; specifically relating to Frankenstein and his choices on creating the monster, but also in the way that the monster took revenge; leaving the reader to question whether it was right or wrong, much like a decision on an ethics board.

In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses various symbols, themes, and irony to develop the well-known short story. A symbol is a person, place, or thing that represents something beyond itself, most often something concrete or tangible that represents an abstract idea (“A Glossary Of…” 2). An instance of symbolism in “The Lottery” is the lottery itself. The lottery is a tradition that the villagers follow willingly without questioning the morality of the event.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a small town with an unexpected dark tradition. When you first start reading you associate the lottery as a good thing. As you read on the story slowly starts eluding to a darker outcome. The further you read, the more you get foreshadowing lending a sense of impending doom. When the story comes to its conclusion that the one selected in the lottery is going to be stoned to death, you have the questions come to mind of, why do they do this, to what end?

In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson uses irony, symbolism, and tone to develop the plot of the story. The word irony is use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning (Irony 1). Dramatic irony is when a character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better (Research 2). It occurs when Tessie objects

The lottery is about a little village where they had a gathering called “The Lottery.” where who ever got the black dot would be stoned. For example as the author quotes “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her” as quoted in “The Lottery”by Shirley Jackson. In the short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to illustrate the themes of the tradition and randomness of persecution.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a strange village that blindly follows a non beneficial tradition. Jackson uses several objects in order to convey the overall theme of mob mentality to the reader, such as stones, old man Warner, and the black box. The symbols build upon the story to solidify the theme that mob mentality can ruin a society. Many societies even today struggle with mob mentality especially communist societies. " The Lottery" is a prominent example of how history repeats itself.

The Social Impartiality in ´´ The Lottery´´, by Shirley Jackson Have you ever witnessed a manifestation of injustice, but had preferred to step aside? If this is such a terrible attitude to assume, imagine how worst everything could be when the case is about a whole town keeping its arms crossed in the situation. In the story ´´ The Lottery´´ by Shirley Jackson, we can appreciate diverse uses of the literary elements of symbolism, theme and foreshadowing, used by the author to represent the degradation of a society immersed in the impartiality.

The parallel in “The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse Winner”, establish an understanding about their topics; yet two short stories are different, one illustrates admiration and other uncovers detestation. T. Bailey, an American Literature and Culture instructor gives us some canny comprehension, “The scapegoating line of interpretation associates the stoning of a victim with the ancient Hebrew tradition of choosing a scapegoat to carry off the sins of the community at large and is often seen as a statement about man 's inhumanity to man. Brooks and Warren (1971:74), for instance, cite the story as a tale about the "all-too-human tendency to seize upon a scapegoat", while others go back to Jackson 's own statement about the story shortly after publication that "I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story 's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives ”. These two stories make me to reflect on the story of the scapegoat shared in Leviticus 16:10, “…the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness”. Jesus our substitute who borne our sins and made full payment for the sins of humanity; in that small

Written in 1948, ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson is a controversial short story heavily influenced by the events that occurred during that time in history. Jackson effectively captures the dark nature of the human spirit in her dystopian piece, ‘The Lottery’; there are significant parallels between the short story and the sociological, economic and political climate at the time due to the Holocaust and the red scare in the United States. During these difficult times in history, individuals were persecuted for their beliefs, and often it was people that they believed were close to them that allowed for these unspeakable acts to occur. The lengths that members of society are able to go to in order to protect their own interests is deplorable, and Jackson has illustrated this theme in a more apparent manner.

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.

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.

In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", the black wooden box functions to set the tone of the story's unexpected outcome, in addition to, elevating the theme of fault in practicing tradition solely because it is so. The box's aesthetic appearance assists the reader in deconstructing a false association with a lottery and a positive outcome. Its surface is coated in black, being not colorful or curious to look at like modern lottery ball machines. This choice of coloring, or rather lack of, is a nod towards Jackson's dark interpretation of a lottery. This darkness is hinted also by Mr. Martin and his son, who are hesitant to approach the vicinity of the box when it is first placed on a stool by Mr. Summers, revealing their fear in what it represents.

Irony is when the use of words is used to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning. In Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” the irony is that everyone is trying to lose the lottery instead of winning because if you win you will be stoned. In Ray Bradbury's “All Summer in a Day” the irony is that the one who wanted to see the sun the most was locked up when it came out and didn't get to see it. In Susan Glaspell's “ A Jury of Her Peers” the irony is that the “jury” was really made up of a sheriff, his wife, Mr. Hale and his wife none of which were considered her peers. This essay will talk about the comparison of irony in all three stories.