The Theme Of Sacrifice In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

OUTINE PAGE Similarities Both stories are satirical. They use the situation to mock society. Paul is an innocent child that is compelled to be the one who earns money for his family by betting on horses. The satire is in the destabilization of family values the mother that does not love her child and the uncle that encourages his nephew to gamble. In the Lottery, the same satire is seen, the townsmen execute Miss Hutchinson because it’s what they always did, their children will kill one of their own every year, and their parents did the same.

Tessie’s entire act in the beginning of the story is proven to be fake once she offers her children to go into the lottery. This is shown when she hollers in front of everyone, “‘There’s Don and Eva,’ … ‘Make them take their chance!’” (6) By making these kids take their chance in the lottery, the reader can see she is sacrificing her own kids out of greed. She does this with the intention of making her chance of getting chosen minimal. This action shows that her entire character transitions to a cowardly adult who clearly thinks more of herself then her own children. Any other guardian would choose to spare their children’s lives and offer themselves as a way to keep them alive.

While on the bus to see Amaia, Rafa meets a woman named Merche. He pretends to be Basque due to his anxiety over how Basque people treat others. Merche knows he’s lying and they become brief friends until she gets off the bus. Rafa finally makes it to Amaia’s house and confesses his love to her, but ultimately gets rejected. He leaves and gets caught up in a dumpster fire, and is put in jail.

The next symbolism in the narrative are the stones, which is used as the villagers weapon to terrorize and murder each other, Shirley Jackson describes the day of the lottery holding saying “the morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day”, “the people of the village began to gather in the square”(290).then Shirley Jackson narrates the symbol subtly narrating “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stone, and the other boys soon followed, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones”(290). the stones symbolizes death in the story and first introduced as a foreshadow in the beginning of the short story and once story goes further and then it unfolds that the stones are collected to kill whoever

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.

The paper is forced out of Tess Hutchinson’s hand. “It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office” (Jackson (395). Tess is the winner, which is going to be stoned to death by her village, and even her son is given stones to throw at her. “The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles” (Jackson, 396). The village people were eager and ready to finish the lottery.

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. In order to cause suspense in the story Shirley Jackson uses foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism. At the beginning of the story there is many spots were foreshadowing is used. One place would be when the villagers start to go to the town square to begin. “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones;...” Before the drawing of the lottery starts the younger boys begin to gather rocks and put them in their pockets.

Shirley Jackson's, “The Lottery,” portrays the tradition of a small town in which a member of the community must get sacrificed in order to allow for a good agricultural season. The ways in which they do so is a fair lottery where citizens draw and see if they are the “chosen one” which they end up stoning to death. All citizens must partake in the lottery, including children and the elderly. Through Jackson’s development of the story, the people seem to be in a state of excitement and thrill when being part of the lottery. The citizens are constantly gossiping, laughing, and kids playing, waiting to see who is next to be stoned.

The hush of deathly mutilation will always follow a downpour of stones. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” ends in this grim death after being misled by the title. What seems to start out as a virtuous time in the story, a traditional gathering on a sunny day with green grass and children running amok, takes a severe turn when the friendly community is actually coming together to play the game of stoning roulette. At the assembly, the head of each attending household will pull a card, either blank or marked with a dot. Of course, if the card is blank, the entire household is in the clear of facing their doom.

The lottery is about a little village where they had a gathering called “The Lottery.” where who ever got the black dot would be stoned. For example as the author quotes “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her” as quoted in “The Lottery”by Shirley Jackson. In the short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to illustrate the themes of the tradition and randomness of persecution. In the short story it show the tradition on how dangerous it is when people follow it blindly. The villagers seem harmless even with their preparation.

The darker action in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is the fact that the winner is stoned to death. The whole town believes in this crazy ritual. They believe a lottery in June means more corn soon. To all the people in the town this is just a normal way of life and no one is brave enough to suggest that the lottery be stopped. Other towns have stopped the lottery and old Man Warner snorts that they are a pack of crazy fools no good will come from them.

Ram and Kurt take the opportunity to pick a fight with him, and he unexpectedly fights back and defeats them. Watching the fight, Veronica finds herself attracted to the stranger ("Fight for Me"). At Veronica 's house, Chandler ridicules her for being into someone below her social status, and subtly insults her parents, who aren 't sure they like their daughter 's new friends ("Candy Store

Children run around finding stones and placing them in the town square, and everyone is talking about a strange black box and how ratty it has become but will not be replaced because it is a tradition. Jackson pokes holes in the devoutness of tradition by stating that this wasn’t the original box that at some point had become lost and that the town agreed to switch from the traditional woodchips to pieces of paper being drawn. If the town was so set on the traditions for fear of the unknown happening to them then why were these factors allowed to be altered with no consequence? The blind tolerance of the village lottery condones a horrific murder of a citizen each year. The lack of reason for this lottery shows how dangerous it is to act so thoughtlessly.