Symbols In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is basically trying to comprehend the readers what the symbols in the short story could mean. In "The Lottery" there are an amount of symbols that are included in the short story, such as, the black box, the stoning, the people who live in the village, and even the date of the lottery.

A symbol is represented through the use of objects. Furthermost noticeable of these objects would be the black box mentioned in the short story.

“The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it." (Jackson 108) The black box represents the fate of each individual, as the three-legged stool that is used to support

Black is culturally known as a dark and evil color, the choice of using black for the box is a perfect fit for the theme of the short story, foreshadowing the coming death of the citizen. No one in the village surely knows how the lottery started, but they kept on following through with it because it is what has always been done.

Another representation of symbolism would be the stones that give an access to all the citizens in the village to throw stones at the selected winner of the lottery.

As the narrator observes, "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones." (Jackson 114) in which stoning is ancient and one that costs a great deal of punishment. Not only getting stoned is a terrible way to imagine death, it is indeed and always will be known as a crowd-generated death. During the time when the lottery is drawn and the winner is selected to be stoned, the stones are permitted for everyone in the village to contribute freely in the ritual. These stones that get used signifies as murder weapons. Stoning is one of the oldest and most mutual forms of killing, the method of eliminating a citizen at the end of the story was certainly not a random choice