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Symbolism Of Death In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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Lottery Winners

When a person buys a scratch ticket, or a powerball ticket, their hope is that they will win the lottery. If a person wins the lottery, one could claim up to 1.5 billion dollars. Imagine what someone could do with all of that money. There are so many possibilities of great things to do with such a reward and one would be extremely happy to win the lottery. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, winning the lottery is not something to be happy about. In a small village, every June 27th, they have a lottery where all of the people gather together in the square and put slips of paper in a black box for each family living in the village. All of the slips of paper are blank, except for one. In every family, …show more content…

During the lottery, all of the slips of paper are kept in the black box. The slips of paper determine what happens to the person who drew it. If it is blank, which was more likely, then the person’s family would be spared and no one in their family would be killed or sacrificed. If the slip is not blank, it has a giant black dot on the slip, and it means that the person who drew that slip, will have to have their family draw more slips to see who in their family will have to be killed. This represents death because the black box contains the answer to the question of: Who is going to be stoned to death this year for the lottery? But, that’s not all. The black box is used every year in the lottery. Therefore, it has been used to pick who gets killed many times …show more content…

The symbols that she uses are when she mentions the black box, the black spot, and the stones. The author uses so much symbolism throughout the story because the story is told in third person reporter. This way the reader is only aware of the actions taking place and not aware of the way the characters are feeling and thinking. The symbols give the reader clues to what may happen to the so-called ‘winner’ of the lottery. In the story, the ‘winner’ of the lottery gets killed, but the reader would probably assume that the winner of the lottery would receive some type of grand reward. This is because lotteries that one buys scratch tickets and powerball numbers for in real life, give the winner a ton of money. The outcome of this particular lottery happens to be completely different. That is why these symbols are so important and add to the story. It shows the reader a bit of a lesson. The lesson to learn from this story, is don’t judge something for what it is until knowing what it actually is. Most people hear lottery and think money. In this story, if someone were to enter this lottery with that mindset, they might be a little disappointed with the

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