The Role Of Manipulation In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 11th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2012] 278-285) is quite ironic in its presentation. The nameless narrator in the story leads the reader into making an observation that supports the title; however, the story ends up in a turmoil that baffles the reader; leading to a change in ideas that were developed earlier. The story gives a false sense of harmony by its setting and how Jackson describes the preparation for the lottery, this leads to a misconception that the tradition is jovial.

In the story “All Quiet on the Western Front,” WW1 is narrated by a German soldier, Paul. The war is explained as having mainly negative effects on the soldiers: “...men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.” (1)

Everyone has experienced loss in their life, it’s inevitable. Whether that’s losing the other half of a pair of socks or loss of a loved one. People can lose things that aren’t even physically there. They can lose control or their minds. It’s not uncommon to lose things, in fact, everyone loses at least one thing every day, and they might not even be aware of it. The hardest type of loss is most likely losing someone that was loved or cherished. That is the type of loss that can’t be found again. Though, some things people don’t know they lost or are losing someone until it’s too late. Similar to what happened to Tessie Hutchinson in “The Lottery.” Villagers crowd around the town square to draw cards from a black box that determine who gets violently stoned. Everyone that draws a piece of paper from the box has the same chance

Have you ever been in a situation where you witnessed someone being hurt? Did you do anything to stop them? Most times, we are afraid to help someone else in order to not risk our own lives. Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” uses Tessie as a symbol to explore the idea that fear can lead to the collapse and corruption of a community. In "The Lottery" we are introduced to an unusual lottery in where one person gets unfortunately chosen and stoned to death. In the short story, we process Tessie, the unfortunate that gets stoned to death. In the community, Tessie is surrounded with has proven to be a community that fears to speak up for others in order to not risk their lives. Jackson illustrates Tessie calls out "it's not fair"(33).

Imagine a society where killing somebody for the sake of a tradition is acceptable.In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson describes an ordinary village with normal people, but as the story progress the details of their yearly practice known as “the lottery” unravels to be more disturbing.The author subverts the readers’ expiations by persuading the reader into assuming “the lottery” is a ordinary tradition until unusual details and the behavior of the characters come into place. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

The author Shirley Jackson wrote “The Lottery;” a village conducts an inhumane lottery to pick out one individual. The quote unquote “winner,” in this case, Mrs. “Tessie” Hutchinson, gets stoned heartlessly to death by all the 300 villagers, including her kin. This lottery began as a ceremony long ago to choose a villager to be sacrificed to Earth in exchange for a large harvest. Now, it became an annual tradition, a tradition that is too deep to be changed.

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.

Shirley Jackson’s “The lottery” is a story based on tradition. When hearing the word tradition, most people think of team rituals before games, or something families do together annually. However, Jackson is obviously not like most people. She builds up a fair amount of tension around this ritual that is taking place to make readers wonder what is going on. She uses many different techniques to show that sometimes, traditions are not always meant to go on forever. The three techniques she used that were most prominent are symbolism, irony, and diction.

“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.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is an account of a tradition gone awry. In this short story the villagers of this town have a tradition where they have a “lottery” to see who gets stoned to death. The characterization and symbolism used in the story makes the reader feel as if society has crumbled with the inhumane tradition that ultimately lost its meaning. Throughout the story, Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to imply a message to society about the meaning of tradition. Through the use of characterization and symbolism Jackson establishes that blindly following traditions can be hazardous

Was conducted the lottery story in 1948. In this story, the lottery is a yearly tradition that takes place in a small American Town. Contrary to the normal lottery, in this case one person is randomly selected to be killed by stoning, something the villagers believe to be good for the village. This tradition is accepted by everyone in the village, in fact, including women and children. The author of this story shows the theme of conflict and controversy that hits the lottery.

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.

Human nature can be characterized as being positive, capable of altruism and goodness which sets humankind apart from savage animals; however, human nature possesses a dark side, namely cruelty, and it is capable of barbarism like any beast. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, cruelty is part of human nature, and the participants of the lottery demonstrate human cruelty through violence towards one another; markedly, by exhibiting desensitization to violence and the acceptance of violence resulting in internal dysfunction which is perpetuated yearly.

‘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

In the short story, "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson, the central idea is that sometimes, even though things may not be fair, we still have to do whatever that is. In the text the author writes, "'It isn't fair, it isn't right,' Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her"(Jackson 34, lines 328-329). It appears they Mrs. Hutchinson doesn't think what about to happen to her is fair, but it happens anyway, against her beliefs. In the short story, Jackson sets a certain mood, by using irony and pacing the text, helping to develop the central idea.