The Significance Of Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson. It was about how they have a tradition of holding a lottery every year on June 27. The black box would hold all the papers with the names of all the families in the village. Out of all papers they only had one with a black dot. The person that got the paper with the black dot would get stoned to death.

In all books authors use figurative language to create suspense and get the reader interested. In “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, a small village gets together on June 27th every year to do the “lottery.” Generally people think of the lottery as being a good thing. In this book, however; if you win you die. One member of each family in the village must walk up to a black box alphabetically, select a piece of paper, and return to their spots. Which every family has the piece of paper with the black dot on it must redraw from the box and who ever then gets the dot will “win” the lottery and get stoned.

At the start of this story you get this feeling of excitement because everyone gathers and it seems like everyone looks forward to the lottery. In reality, this lottery is a dark event yet everybody attends as this has become a ritual over the years despite its harsh results. It is odd and you ask yourself why would people gather and participate knowing that someone is going to get stoned, they do it because it is human nature to do something that you do constantly may it

Power of the Gods For generation, human society is constantly changing throughout history and many of those changes are the extreme religious beliefs that many people practices. Such as “sacrificial rituals”. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson had written a novel about a small town that does sacrificial ritual once every year because they believe it would help the crops grow well in the summer. The process of this ritual is done by a random selection from a lottery box by each members of household and if a person draws a paper with a black dot on it, that person will be stone to death by the town folks. During the Iron Age, sacrificial rituals is commonly used around the countries such as Mexico, Egypt, China, and numerous of others countries and small tribes because they believe that it would please a divine being that is known to be alive.

“The Lottery” In the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the story depicts a theme of conformity and rebellion. This theme contributes to the literary elements of plot, character, and setting which help develop the story. A lottery is defined as a drawing of lots in which prizes are distributed to the winner’s among persons buying the chance. However, in “The Lottery” the author portrays lottery as a traditional ritualistic ceremony, which symbolizes that whomever draws the black dot on a slip of paper becomes the sacrifice. The sacrifice is to help harvest crops to feed the town throughout the year.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is about a tradition that happens every year on June 27th. On this warm day of June, the people of the village gather in a square to participate in the tradition lead by Mr. Summers. In the tradition (lottery), Mr. Summers first calls every head of a family (men) forward to pick a piece of paper from a black faded box. Each man has to wait until all the other men of the village have chosen and then they all open the piece of paper at the same time. The winner is the one that has a black dot on their paper.

In the short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson gives us a vivid descriptive details about the terrifying ordeal. The Lottery is about a community that each year gather, they then have a black box that has

For instance in “The Lottery” the scenes changed from quiet laughter, and children playing to everyone in the town stoning Mrs. Hutchinson. Which can be compared to the scene in “The Destructors” when Mr. Thomas retunes from his trip early, and the boys must make a quick decision to abandon the house or destroy it. The basic conflict of “The Lottery” and “The Destructors” can be viewed as individual vs. society. “The Lottery” expounds upon one person’s struggle against the mass population of this small town. All the events are considered normal

In Shirley Jackson’s 1949 short story “The Lottery,” takes place on a beautiful June summer day in a fictional location with a universal setting. The town is small, and the lottery does not take very long due to the size of the town. The town people attend the lottery once a year in the square of the village. Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing in the short story “The Lottery,” by painting a beautiful picture of utopia, and building suspense and horror to keep the reader anxious to find out what is won in the lottery. In the beginning of the story the setting is perfect.

The Theme Thingy Shirley Jackson’s infamous short story, “The Lottery” is located in a quaint little village around southwest Vermont with a measly population of only 300 people. Every year, the townspeople hold a possibly religious event, with malicious intent. Bill Hutchinson, a hard-working man of the village, is the head of a loving family, whom he runs with his wife tessie. During the actual lottery, the Hutchinson family is picked, and later on, Tessie is chosen as the sole receiver of the many stones that had been gathered by the villagers. The actions of everyone in this family, and the communication has lead me to believe that one of the central themes in this short story is mob mentality.

Many towns have traditions that they are not willing to let go of, but none like the one in the story The Lottery. Unlike most traditions this one does not have a happy ending. If you draw the chosen ticket from the black box you are then pegged with rocks by your whole town including your family.The forsaken tradition that this town is not willing to let go is dangling on by a thread. Many signs are shown throughout the story that the tradition that they thought would last forever is not going to last so long. In the story The Lottery every year they do an annual lottery.

During the time of picking the oldest villager Mr. Warner makes the comment that” If they stop doing the lottery, life would go back to cave men ways”. Next, Mr. Summers tells everyone they may open their slips of paper. Bill Hutchison picked the slip of paper with the dot on it, and Tessie immediately starts protesting. This is the part of the story whereas readers we realize the lottery may not be a good thing. There are five people in the Hutchison family and they each have to draw another slip of paper from the box.

They all gather June 27th once a year to perform the lottery, as the adults get ready for the ceremony, the kids play and gather piles of stones. When Mr. Summer starts to perform the ceremony every head of household has to grab a piece of paper from a black wooden box. The family that gets the “marked” piece of paper is the chosen one; in this case, the Hutchinsons were the chosen ones. Now all the family members

They had spent thousands of dollars and hours of their time driving me to and from games and practices. They were my biggest supporters and I had dropped this bombshell on them seemingly out of nowhere even though I hadn’t felt a love for the game since I was fourteen. My dad took me for one final batting lesson with Tom, hopping he could convince me. And ironically enough, it was the best lesson I ever had. I hit line drive after line drive and Tom kept asking, “Why do you want to give this up, Cassie?” I had no answer for him at the time, mostly because I was coerced into going to the lesson to begin with.