Preview

Sacrifice Consequences In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
384 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sacrifice Consequences In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
What would you do if your friends were doing something that you didn’t agree with? Following the crowd can lead to disastrous consequences. In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, a small town holds an event that they call the lottery but the winner does not receive money, the prize for the winner is death. In first they came by Martin Niemoller, a man in a concentration camp does not speak out for anyone when the Nazi soldiers came for the people that they were trying to kill. In these two short stories everyone was following the crowd and it led to disastrous consequences.

In the first place, in the lottery multiple people are killing one person. In the lottery the children gather stones rocks pebbles of shapes and sizes and they make this death

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson used foreshadowing to hint that someone is going to get stoned because she says the kids gathered small smooth round stones into a pile. I knew this because in the story it says the kids had smooth small round stones in their pocket and pulled them out. A quotation from the story that helped me know this is “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example.” (Jackson). This shows that the kids gathered it into a pile for a reason. They did it to stone someone the got picked and it was Mrs. Hutchinson. So, Therefore the stones were there to kill the person. Jackson’s use of foreshadowing in “The Lottery” contributed to the story by almost giving away the…

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Well, you definitely have to read this story more than once to pick up on all of the small subtleties…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory 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

    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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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.…

    • 104 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

    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
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    Overall Shirley Jackson discusses the movement of the setting, the unusual foreshadowing, and the outermost symbolism in "The Lottery" to give an overall point of view of the story.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As society changes, some traditions evolve, but some remain stagnant. Tradition is a substantial part of our life today, but decades ago it was a lifestyle. Anyone with an objection to a tradition was met with dire consequences. In “The Lottery,” the fortunate or in this case the unfortunate winner would be stoned to death. “The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock” (Jackson 1). This quote shows that the lottery runs on tried-and-true process, and the whole town passionately followed the ritual. The participants were of the view that the sacrifice would bring in bountiful corn during harvest time. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson proficiently uses distinctive setting…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “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
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In The Lottery

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The lottery is filled with many rules. Mr. Summer creates the paper with every family member’s name of them. Once the lottery began, every individual pull the slips out the old black box. If one of the children is too young or someone is not there to pull a slip the lottery chooses the person to pull a slip in their place. The families’ bond is a big part of the lottery. During the lottery, the families come as one. Each family stood together and each family pulls their slip of paper together. The families’ bond also changed. Once Tessie was selected to be stoned, her family joined other people in the village in stoning her to death. The same family that stood together was now turning against one of their…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story begins, “clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day” (Jackson 1). The author sets the bright, joyful mood for the lottery, an annual tradition held in the village. “The children assembled first,” (1) gathering to play together. Jackson describes the children “selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (1) for what the reader might think could be any children’s game. The excited nature of the children encourages the reader to read with ease and happiness, although, further on in the story, the author completely changes the perspective of the reader. When the reader is introduced to the “prize” of the lottery, the reason the children were collecting…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays