Preview

Persecution In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
104 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Persecution In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
Lastly, another theme in the story is persecution; the villagers persecute each other at random no matter if villagers are innocent or children are at stake. Whenever the lottery is played, each family is in danger. When Tessie Hutchison slip is unfolded, she is marked and no matter what, she is chosen to get stoned to death. Even her own husband prosecutes her and turns his back on her, “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip out of her hand” (295). No one is safe in this tradition and everyone will point a finger, based on race, class and religion.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Symbolism In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    The Lottery, a short story written by Shirley Jackson explains two of the most important aspects of humanity: traditions and rituals. The story takes place in a small town in New England where every year a lottery is held, most people would relate lottery to wining cash. In this lottery one person will be randomly choose to be stoned to death by the people in the village including their own family members. The lottery has been practiced for over seventy years by the townspeople and even though the villagers do not know the purpose of this tradition or the origin of it, they keep it to show respect to their ancestors ignoring the fact that is cruel and it is turning the whole village into murderers.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Tage Rai's Article 'How Could They?'
    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analysis Of Tage Rai's Article 'How Could They?'

    Shirley Jackson’s shorty story, “The Lottery” demonstrates no sense of compassion or reluctancy when Tessie Hutchinson is chosen as the ‘winner' to be stoned. Jackson’s description of the proceedings following Mrs. Hutchinson’s win sharpens the violence, as she writes, “The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready…And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles”…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Situational Irony In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page

    Situational Irony In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    Furthermore, the theme and conflict of the stories were developed by the use of situational irony. In “The Possibility of Evil” the irony of the effect of the letters on the town creates a greater evil in society rather than eliminate it, through the irony the conflict of Ms.Strangeworth vs society is created. In “The Lottery” the irony of Tessie Hutchinson conforming to the tradition and then objecting as she is stoned to death creates the theme “the dangers of following traditions blindly”. Looking at the picture, the theme and conflicts of these stories cause the reader/society to question morals and to looks for flaws in oneself before looking in others. Doing so will help accomplish Shirley Jackson’s underlying message to improve the shortcomings…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    The horror that I felt when looking back upon this story, was only amplified by rereading it, knowing what the ceremony actually would entail. The unsuspecting reader begins the story thrown into a lovely summer seen in a quaint village. Details about children attending school, men and women chatting, lull the reader into contentment. Once the reveal is made, tiny, once insignificant details cast the story in completely new light, an awful one. This contrast between the relive happiness of the beginning, and the grimness at the end heightens the aspect of horror.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Evil Of Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 201 Words
    • 1 Page

    The Evil Of Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    Through her ability to display the grim reality of a small idealized town, Shirley Jackson unmasks the evil of tradition in “The Lottery.” She repeats that mindless rituals are unacceptable practices. Jackson begins her writing with, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (715). This first sentence gives us clues that there is not an extreme amount of emotion; it hints that the style reflects the attitudes of the villagers. The townspeople picture the lottery as normal and have no more emotion towards it than they do the flowers or the warm sunny day. The children begin collecting rocks as they are playing, and the adults…

    • 201 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Those Who Blindly Follow the Masses in Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery”
    • 766 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Those Who Blindly Follow the Masses in Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery”

    Tessie, like many people, believe that the world can be cruel and unjust. Upon birth, we are thrown into a world far beyond our control. We cannot decide what race or culture we will be born into, or how much wealth our family possesses. To put it simply: life itself is a lottery. Jackson uses the lottery as a symbol of the inequality of being born into the human race. The fate of the citizens lies in the inability of their society to accept change and put aside a tradition followed since its' beginning. How can innocent lives be taken by the hands of one man, his box and a cruel black circle on a piece of paper? Even in modern society innocent people are lost to people blindly following the masses. Take the holocaust for example. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people died at the hands of one man. And while the citizens of Germany may have questioned the morality of what was happening, there were only a few who spoke out against the injustice; the rest did not, in fear for the well-being of themselves and their families. Instead, they stood with the crowd, just as the people of the village in “The Lottery” do. The people…

    • 766 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Brutality In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Brutality In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    Brutality is a universal force in people’s lives that most have already gotten used to indirectly, yet people claim otherwise. But are their claims true or false? We become known to see news of people getting murdered or of cases of abuse in the home or somewhere else and claim right away that how horrible it is and that we as people would never do something this awful, but we prove these things false in our daily lives. So what makes us different than the town in “The Lottery” or the people behind the attacks in Paris? Nothing is different at all. “The Lottery” and the Paris attacks were acts of violence based on people's different beliefs.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Guilty In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'
    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Guilty In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'

    Everyone should be held accountable for their actions, even children. Using only a couple stories such as “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “killers of the dream” by Lillian Smith, and a story about a young girl who pursues her right to an education. These stories will show you that everyone should be accountable for their actions.…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Sacrifice In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Sacrifice In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    Most small towns have their own special tradition. Nokomis, Illinois has a Homecoming carnival the second weekend in July every year, Witt has Labor Day, and Hillsboro has Old Settlers. These events bring the community together in celebration. However, in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery on July 27th the community does not gather for a celebration; instead they gather nervously awaiting the yearly tradition of “The Lottery”. In this village members of the community draw slips of paper from an old worn wooden box to determine who will be sacrificed for the greater good of the village. It is suggested in the story that the sacrifice is for the growth of the corn. The ritual of the lottery has been going on for so long that the majority of people don’t know why they continue the tradition or its origin; the community only knows that they always have.…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Inhumane Ritual In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Inhumane Ritual In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    The short story by Shirley Jackson “The Lottery” serves as a mirror to see our own society and rituals at an extreme. Throughout the story the author normalizes the characters’ inhumane ritual so the reader would be able to understand the underlining meaning of the story. In our society there are rituals that we do not dare to question because they have been embedded into our lives. The character Old Man Warner justifies such rituals by saying, on page 142, “There’s always been a lottery.” he himself not entirely understanding why it is done. Shirley Jackson wants the reader to understand how oblivious society is to itself, and shows how it would be if it were to be looked upon in an outer perspective.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Significance Of Sacrifice In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Significance Of Sacrifice In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    (Introduction) “The Lottery,” a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a woman who has been selected for sacrifice by a lottery drawing. Tessie Hutchinson, and the rest of her town, are unfeeling about how the annual sacrifice affects the selected. However, they carry on with their tradition year after year, with no intent to make changes to meet modern day morals and needs. “The Lottery” is about blindly following tradition, the awareness of how cruel a practice sacrificing is, and how one’s mindset can change when they are the chosen one.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mortality And Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Mortality And Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is nothing less than a powerful story about a society that gathers once per year and holds a lottery. But this is not a lottery with a winner; it is a lottery with a loser. “The Lottery” is a chilling story because it depicts a sense of normalcy among the towns’ people when they randomly decided to kill a neighbor by practically just drawing straws. This story really asks the question, are rituals always a good thing? If rituals are a good or bad thing do we even know why we do it half the time? “The Lottery”, shows us that even though tradition may have been happening for years doesn’t mean that the traditions we choose to follow are beneficial.…

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Ritual Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Ritual Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    It is often said that there is strength in numbers. While it is true that a large group of people has more power than an individual, a single person within a large group will almost always conform in some way. This weakens the individual and leads to fewer new ideas in order to maintain group status and agreement. Many times, rituals or ideas are allowed and accepted just because they are favored by a majority or have been part of that society for so long that they have become almost like a tradition. In "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson uses alarming images to guide the reader to understand the futility and foolishness of blind obedience to these rituals. The lottery “selection” emphasizes the importance of questioning what is right in front of you instead of just conforming mindlessly.…

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Similarities Between 'To Kill A Mockingbird And The Lottery'
    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Similarities Between 'To Kill A Mockingbird And The Lottery'

    For my final project, I decided to create an art piece that represented what makes people evil. I chose to show Clay Derby from Copper Sun, Bob Ewell from To Kill a Mockingbird, and a character from The Lottery to show this. These three people all showed a lack of empathy and I drew a head that was split into the three people. The blindfold that is covering their eyes symbolizes the blindness to others’ feelings. Their selfishness is something that you don’t just see in books, but it relates to real life.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Dangerous Game vs. the Lottery
    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Dangerous Game vs. the Lottery

    In “the lottery”, Tessis Hutchinson is faces with a stoning from her village. The town holds a lottery to stone one person every year. A lot of work goes into this lottery and everyone has to partake in it. Once Tessis has the feeling it will be her she tries to save herself for the stoning.…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics