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Themes Of Symbolism In The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson

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“The Lottery” Short Story Essay In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Jackson displays many cases of symbolism over an interesting theme. He also shows some irony throughout his short story. His story takes place in a fictional small town around an annual lottery. However, this isn’t a regular lottery. This lottery is based on the idea of “survival of the fittest” and is put in place to keep order in society. The leaders of the town push to keep the lottery in place because of tradition, and that is where the theme is found. The theme of the story is how society blindly follows tradition. Symbolism is found throughout the short story. Mr. Summers, the man who conducts the lottery, has a name that illustrates a peaceful and normal village even …show more content…

Nearly all of the heads of the families were men, and the leaders of the village, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, were also men. Only the head of the family can draw from the lottery, which ultimately decides the fate of their family. In this village, all of the decisions that were made were followed and never really questioned. As far as the the natural selection of the lottery goes, everybody was equal. The young children had the same chance of being selected to be stoned as the elder men of the town, including Old Man Warner. He has survived the lottery 77 times now, and he likes to brag about …show more content…

The day in the village begins as a normal, sunny day and ends with a dead housewife. Tessie Hutchinson, Bill Hutchinson’s wife, forgot the day of the lottery was this particular day. She was still at the house cleaning the dishes before she looked around wondering where everybody else in her family had went. Then, it dawned on her- today was the day. “Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said...” (Jackson 338). She was not late, but she was one of the last to arrive. In the end of the drawing, it was the Hutchinson family that had the black dot, and Tessie was the one that was eventually stoned to

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