Preview

An Analysis Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
415 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
An Analysis Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
This is a story about a small rural village that holds its annual lottery. Families in the village participate and the lottery starts by one representative from each family pulling a piece of paper from the black box the one who gets the paper with the black spot is stoned to death as per tradition of the lottery. This world that is created by Shirley Jackson in “The Lottery” is a dystopia.
When Bill Hutchinson pulled the paper with the black dot, his wife, Tessi, objects, saying that he didn’t have enough time to pick. Despite her protest, each member of the Hutchinson family, five in total, was required to pull slips of paper out of the box again to see who gets the black spot. In the end, Mrs. Hutchinson gets the black spot and is stoned

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, yet still, leaves a mark on any person who gets their hands on it today. The story starts out by setting an enjoyable atmosphere at the beginning of summer. The community gathers and the story almost fulfills the reader’s idea of a perfect town activity. However, the story has a sharp twist at the end that leaves the reader in shock. Jackson wrote the story to leave an impact and whom how quickly human nature can change. Shirley Jackson shows the duality of human nature in the characters of the children, Tessie Hutchinson, and Mr. Summers.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In The Lottery

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The Lottery” is about a village that came together on June 27th for the lottery. The lottery is a gathering of all the families that stay in a village that resulted in one individual getting stoned to death. “The Lottery” has many themes. Looking at “The Lottery” the black box and stones, rules and families’ bond, and characters in it explained how their symbolism transformed the story from a random collection of events to a story about people’s willingness to sacrifice other people to follow traditions that no one know the meaning to.…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short stories, “The Lottery” and “Charles”, have notable differences in writing styles. “The Lottery”, is a story about chance. Will you be lucky enough to live for the day? “Charles” is about Laurie, who is starting Kindergarten and wants attention from his parents. In both short stories, the author, Shirley Jackson, described the characters, the themes, and the situations to create an illustration for the reader.…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” it is evident that conforming to society and sticking with tradition can lead to outweighing personal morals./be a burden on the lives of people. Although The Lottery was a tradition that has been occurring for years, nobody sticks up to support their morals to challenge The Lottery. Not only does The Lottery limit the rights of many, but many other expectations in their society do too.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson many of the beliefs in the story are giving the lottery a bad meaning. In this story The Lottery is a huge event of stoning winners of the lottery. Many of the lottery winners think maybe the drawings are very unfair. Normally the first thing that comes to a persons mind when they think about the lottery is a large sum of money, in the story “The Lottery” it is not the same. This story makes the readers mind wonder and see two aspects of the story, for what they think “The Lottery” is and what it really meant to them. In the story one of the main characters Tessie Hutchinson felt the lottery was unfair and decided to protest. Old Man Warner and also Mr. Summers are pretty much on the same…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Final Paper The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a seemingly normal day in a small village. The town has gathered together on a beautiful summers day to socialize and to support the local businesses. Typically, when one thinks of a lottery, they think of winning something pleasant, such as money or baked goods. However, after a few pages this is clearly not the case. In the beginning of the story, all the villagers are gathering while the children collect stones joyfully. Each family’s name is called, and the head of each household comes up to get a piece of paper nervously. Once all of the families have drawn a piece of paper it is quickly seen that Bill Hutchinson’s family has the only slip of paper with a black dot. They have won the lottery. However, winning the lottery is not as pleasant as was earlier assumed. Mrs. Hutchinson begins to protest, terrified of her family’s fate, proclaiming that the lottery is not fair. Her protests…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    “Tradition is a guide not a jailer.” (W. Somerset Morgan) This quote shows how people take pride in being part of a tradition and ritual. Similarly, in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, a human is sacrificed every year to follow and honor an old custom that was stamped ever since the town was established. This year out of a village of 300 people, Bill Hutchinson's family won the lottery, and in the second round of the raffle, out of all five members of the family, Tessie Hutchinson had the card with the black mark meaning she was going to be sacrificed. Shorty after winning, Tessie was stoned to death as a sacrifice to the gods. The lottery was conducted because the villagers want to follow an old ritual and tradition which…

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jackson through the cautionary tale The Lottery displays the powerlessness of an individual when up against stronger external power. Tessie Hutchinson immediately disassociates her from the rest of the villagers as she ‘forgot what day it was’. Her initial support for the lottery is only paralleled by her subsequent desperation to get out of it as she demanded ‘to start over’ in an anxious tone. Tessie’s repetition ‘It wasn’t fair’ highlights her as a rebellious figure as she was the only one who questioned the lottery, contrasting to her husband who followed the other villagers’ repudiation of the protest by telling her to ‘shut up’ out of fear of being ashamed by the community. However, Tessie’s later reaction to her family being chosen displays…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Lottery, a well-known short story written by Shirley Jackson and was published in 1949. Shirley Jackson creates a story filled with lots and lots of foreshadows and symbolisms, these helps building up the tension within the reader mind to question the conclusion of the story. The main focal theme of The Lottery is the danger of blindly following tradition, the author used this theme as a mirror to reflect on the society. The Lottery is worth reading because the message Jackson used to portray the modern day society about its tradition, to question for its purpose and outcomes. Throughout the story the author used a variety of techniques to bring together the whole concept of the story, some of the techniques are foreshadowing, symbolism…

    • 127 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Omelas Vs Lottery

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “The Lottery” begins with a community portraying an uneasiness in each person’s actions because a certain event takes place the same day, every year, casting a shadow on everyone’s lives on that day. Every person will select a slip of paper from a box and the person with the slip that has a black dot on it will be stoned to death, quickly, with stones that people have already stacked in a pile. The pile is an accumulation…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Literary Response: The Lottery The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, is a compelling story about the human race and how it is affected by its surrounding traditions. When the 27th of June arrives, a village is overtaken by a two hour lottery, which includes the picking of stones, a black box and ends in a fight for the “winners” life.…

    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lottery by Shirley Jackson tells an intriguing, thought-provoking and disturbing story, by using conventions of symbolism, dialogue and foreshadowing. The conventions used help bring together, emphasize and create meaning for the reader, that people blindly follow traditions that have lost meaning .Jackson has cleverly used symbolism in the short story to form a multifaceted meaning that challenges the readers to broaden their thoughts in regards to the tradition. The convention of dialogue misleads the reader at the beginning to think that the community spirit is strong but toward the end it reveals dispute and injustice. Foreshadowing subtly and progressively gives the reader captivating clues to the unfolding event. “The Lottery” tells a fascinating story about an unrevealed village which blindly follows an annual tradition passed down from long ago. This tradition involves the whole community of about 300 people, one of which is stoned to death.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story of “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson is very different in terms of the ways you and I may see the lottery today. The lottery today is looked at as fun, entertaining and almost as a type of recreation for many Americans but not in this short story. The lottery in this story is the total opposite of the way we view it today. It does not deal with entertainment but it deals with your life literally, almost as if they are playing Russian roulette. But this all seems like a normal everyday occurrence to this small farming community that seems to be just like any typical farming community except for the fact that each harvest moon someone in the town is sacrificed. Many of the seemingly innocuous details throughout “The Lottery” foreshadow the violent conclusion.…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hoping to Draw a Blank In modern times, the lottery is generally acknowledged as a set of fantastic prizes that people vie to win; however, in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the exact opposite is true. Jackson transforms this rather innocuous-sounding practice to a dark, perverse town ritual in a shocking twist that leaves the reader hungry for more details. Jackson conveys her message that tradition is not always best with her omission of details, use of foreshadowing and abrupt ending.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays