Symbolism And Themes In The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson

In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery the author creates a complex world, a world that possibly could resemble our world that we live in. Every year the villagers culminate in a violent murder, a bizarre ritual that suggests how dangerous tradition can be when people blindly follow it. Shirley Jackson is a master at manipulating her reader, a tactic that pays off as the story unfolds and all of the things that once seemed pleasant are shown to have a very dark side.

Usually there’s a winner in a lottery, but not in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story intrigued me by it's suspenseful nature and it's chaotic events. In small town America, they come together once a year to perform an annual tradition. Mrs. Jackson demonstrates literary devices such as foreshadowing, mood, and conflict in “The Lottery”.

What is violence? Does violence still exist? How do we get rid of this? According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, violence is the use of physical force to harm someone, to damage property, etc. it is an exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse. The Lottery is one of Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece. She was born in California, graduated from Syracuse University in New York and was successful in writing novels, short stories, children’s fiction and biographies. In this short story, Jackson showed uncommon and absurd events in common settings that when it was published, many of the readers asked her questions as to how the conclusion was interpreted.

In 1948, when the New Yorker published Shirley Jacksons piece, “The Lottery,” it sparked outrage among readers, but could arguably be known as one of her most famous pieces of writing. In this short story, Shirley Jackson used literally elements such as imagery, diction, and symbolism to foreshadow the negative and harsh ending of the story; the harsh ending that sparked such outrage by society in the 1940’s.

The short story “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson. This story takes place in a small village where everybody knows each other. In this story all the villagers gather around town for their annual lottery. Everyone in the village is compelled to follow this tradition even if the outcome ends up with someone dying. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses conflict, theme, and irony to develop this suspenseful short story.

“The Lottery" is a verdict of depraved tradition of a community. The story surrounds a town where the lottery is drawn every year as a sacrifice ritual one 's life for a good fertile crop. The lottery rose up public opinions when it first published in 1948. It is a piece of Shirley Jackson in which she wrote about inhumanity and violence among human based on her real experience when she moved to a small town and was rejected by its people. Shirley Jackson always believed in sinful spirit within each individual self as her writing style portrayed the vicious side of her and people 's souls, “The dark current of awareness of evil that runs through her life and work seems too strong to have as its sole root the observance of suburban hypocrisy” (Judy Oppenhaimer). This short story shows that the author has been mastered the art of foreshadowing, symbolism and irony by her diction, narration and the shocking revealed at the end.

Shirley Jackson a very popular author well known for her short story called “The lottery” which always leaves the reader thinking. “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948 which is just weeks after it was written. Some other pieces written by Jackson are “The Haunting of Hill House”, “We have always lived in the castle” as well as “Life among the savages”. Jackson tends to write about horror and mystery and has many other pieces with supernatural themes. Many pieces written by Jackson have a small-town setting that end with horror. The short story “The lottery” is about a small village that has an annual lottery in which the winner gets stoned to death. Many of the townspeople know this is inhumane, but they choose not to speak out because their name isn’t picked. Jackson uses direct characterization to describe all the characters in the village and uses symbolism throughout the story. Not to forget about the vivid description of the setting in the beginning of the short story. Shirley

One big symbol that the short story is discreet about is the black box that is repeated throughout the short story symbolizes fear to adults which could affect even the most innocent. The black box appears to be the only paraphernalia that is still being used in the tradition of having a lottery. Mr. Summers is the one who is running the lottery at the time. Mr. Summers is seen as a nice man, however, when he is introduced, he is seen with the black box. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that uses the black box as a symbol to convey an underlying message that when the power of a tradition is given to a person, it could lead a crumbling society.

The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story of horror and realism. On June 27th on a late summer morning, the villagers of a small New England village gatherd together in the town square to conduct their annual lottery. There is a black box on a stool and in the box there is pieces of paper in the box. Each person from a family get one paper from the black box even the children get a piece of paper and every stayed quiet and nervouse. Then Bill Hutchinson looked at the paper and notice that he got the black dot. So then Tessie starts to complain that the drawing was not set up properly (Jackson). In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses the symbolism, characterization, and theme to develop this short story.

“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts of with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers, the official, holds the lottery. After that, every family draws out of an old black box, and a certain family gets picked. Out of the certain family, one person gets picked as the unlucky “winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery. Her prize is that she is stoned to death.This lottery happens because the town doesn’t want to upset the tradition.

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. More importantly, withholding the true nature of the story until the end, leading to the tragic death of Tessie

The short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson proposes an annual lottery drawing in a little village set in New England. However, unlike any usual lottery, the winner is stoned to death by their fellow townsmen, women and children included. The lottery seems to have been a custom around the area for over seventy years. While other towns are starting to go away from this method, this village continues the tradition. Although it may seem like a simple story, Shirley Jackson implemented various symbols incorporated into the names, objects, and scenario in the story to hide the meaning and intention behind the lottery.

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize. It’s a beautiful summer day and everything seems perfect, but as the reader keeps reading they come to realize that this story is not as simple and straight forward as the title suggest, rather it is a horrifying and dark tale. Shirley Jackson is forwarding the theme on tragic it can be to blindly follow traditions by using foreshowing, symbolism, and dialog.

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson. The story commences with a vivid description of the summer day in the town, giving us the idea that the day will be good. When the lottery begins, families begin to draw slips of paper from the black box. Finally, when Bill Hutchinson withdrew the slip of paper with the black dot, his wife Tessie starts yelling that it wasn 't fair. When the second drawing was held only among the Hutchinson’s family, Tessie gets the same piece of paper with the dot and is stoned to death. Jackson uses imagery and irony, as well as symbolism to make us aware of the custom, and violence and tradition as the themes of this short story.

‘The Lottery’ is a story about tradition and sacrifice. However, even though the NY times article is about sacrifice, they are for different things. Such as money vs. good luck. ‘The Lottery’ talks about this small, peaceful village that have no problems and has mainly positive dialogue. But this village has this really weird tradition. This tradition is based on a lottery. There would be this lottery and every family has their name on it by force since it is a tradition and the family that gets picked would have to do another lottery to see which one in the family dies. To know which person in the family dies every person in the family gets a paper and the paper with the black dot dash. In the lottery someone picks out a family name and the family name that year was the Hutchinsons. The Hutchinsons were pretty mad and mostly Tessie Hutchinson, who started shouting that this is unfair. Then they proceeded to the final lottery, which was the one based on who will die. Every person in the family got a paper and the person with the black dot was Tessie Hutchinson, who then started shouting this is unfair and everyone started throwing rocks at her until she died. The whole story is ironic itself because the tone of the story is a place that’s perfect. The dialogue is mainly positive. The title “The Lottery” also gives the reader a positive perception of the story, that the lottery is a contest, not an execution, but it is in fact an execution at the end. In the article it talks