Preview

The Lottery And Finishing Schools Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
844 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Lottery And Finishing Schools Essay
Roles of the Sexes With both stories being relatively short, it is easier to compare them to some extent. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Finishing Schools” by Maya Angelou, both share similar themes amongst them. In the short story “The Lottery”, there were many themes but one of the ideas that caught my attention was the topic of sexism. The same issue could be identified in the story “Finishing School” The two characters in both stories were dealing with some sort of sexist problem. In the story of Maya Angelou, the character was dealing with both difficulties revolving around sexism and racism throughout the story. In Shirley Jackson’s story, it was mainly about the roles of sexes and how basically all of the men went out to work etc. The way these stories share this comparable theme is that. In “The Lottery” everyone who …show more content…
A few good illustrations to prove the theme of the story is on sexism, is when she says the following “But Miss Glory wouldn’t let me say a thing against her mistress.” This comes to show that she was being ruled by someone superior than her, since Margaret was an African American. A few paragraphs later, it shows Margaret setting down a tray and then a lady asks “What’s your name, girl?” Mrs. Cullinan she replies “She doesn’t talk much. Her name’s Margaret.” This shows how Mrs. Cullinan takes over the conversation, not letting Margaret come up and have a chance to talk to the lady. Margaret was being treated not as a maid but as a slave in the house. With no rights whatsoever, she quit her job and left. Both stories talk about the power of a person having against the town or in the house. The males have all the power, the women’s weren’t allowed to be part of selecting the vote in the lottery and in “Finishing School”, Mrs. Cullinan was the leader of the house and gets everything they way she wants

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    “The Lottery” may be somewhat deceiving from it’s title and can lead you in the wrong direction if you are not careful to notice the foreshadowing signs that is typical in Shirley Jackson’s stories. In “The Lottery” she gives two signs that are hidden deep into words that you, the reader, have to break up. She uses actions by her characters, and characters names. She leaves one more clue that is not in the story, but that fills her own life.…

    • 513 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that without the symbolism of its characters, would amount to little more than an odd tale about a stoning. However, because of what each character represents and the way the setting helps to magnify those representations, it becomes a short story that is anything but short of meaning. The first character is probably the most obviously symbolic character of the story. Every word that leaves Old Man Warner’s Mouth reeks of tradition. He never stops criticizing new ideas about the lottery, the way it is run, or complaining about how things have changed for the worst, etc., etc. When Mr. Adams tells him that the residents of a neighboring village are considering doing away with the lottery, he says…

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    * Withheld information “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a story that withholds information. The withheld piece of information is what the lottery actually is. The lottery is an annual tradition where the people pick a piece of paper out of a box and the one who picks the piece of paper with a black dot is stoned to death. The author, however, does not reveal what happens after the papers are picked until the end of the story. The withholding of information makes the reader wonder what the lottery is and this creates suspense.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1.The dark ending was not a typically lottery but throughout the story methods of foreshadowing was used by the author, Shirley Jackson. Characters throughout the story fear the lottery nervously but the dark suspicions are confirmed when “Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"”(Jackson 5). Tessie instead of being excited for winning the lottery is extremely against winning which confirms that the lottery is nothing to be excited about. Jackson begins the story picturing the town as a the children were playing around as if nothing horrible was about to happen.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Lottery” and “Charles” are both short stories written by Shirley Jackson. The author linked her two pieces of writing together with many similarities, which can be seen throughout the stories. However, there are also differences distinguish them from one another.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    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
  • Good Essays

    The stories I have read: "The Lottery", "Never" and "Harrison Bergeron" all can be similar by one certain theme. I believe that theme would be change. All of these stories' characters needed change in their lives. In "Never" the main character was hopeless and felt trapped and unhappy with her life. She needed to change this routine by seeing the world in a better light or leaving her past behind and catching the train mentioned in the text. In "Harrison Bergeron", the main character, Harrison fights for the right of being individual and change the law that is enforcing it. The traditions may be needed to change in "The Lottery" as innocent people were stoned to death for getting the wrong slip of paper.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Lottery” the narrator describes the setting as a beautiful, warm summer day where the town’s people are gathering for what seems to be a typical social event. The reader anticipates a positive outcome as the narrator describes the day and the characters dispositions. However as the story reaches its climax, the reader realizes that the outcome is not positive at all. The winner of the lottery is to be stoned to death. The author’s intention of this story shows how people become blind to the outcomes of their traditions because of their obsession with traditions. In Richard Connell’s, “The Most Dangerous Game” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” the characters are portrayed as normal human beings with normal behaviors, but as both stories unfold, the characters are shown to be evil with an enjoyment for murder. In “The Most Dangerous Game” humans are hunted, as mere animals, to serve as the perfect prey to satisfy a desire for challenge. In “The Lottery” the townspeople are forced to participate in a ritual that will result in the death of an unwilling participant to satisfy a belief that the sacrifice of one of their own will guarantee a bountiful harvest. By comparison, the elements of violence and cruelty demonstrate the self-centeredness that abounds in each…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 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

    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

    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

    My Name Is Margaret

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the introduction of the essay, the narrator is informative of how it was like to live in that specific time period. Margaret differentiated between a white girl and a black girl growing up in the south. Maya Angelou claimed, “While white girls learned to waltz and sit gracefully with a tea cup balanced on their knees, we were lagging behind, learning the mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them” ( Angelou 11-14). White girls’ goals in this time period were to grow up and get married to a guy that has money. Black girls’ goals were to grow up with the education needed to be able to support their family.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lottery portrays the theme that you should not blindly go down a path that others set for you. Complementary to that, What of This Goldfish, Would you Wish? demonstrates the them somethings are worth more than others. These two themes synthesize the idea that relationships with others are built through experience which a person gains over time. In both stories, the similarities occurred by blindly having done actions that resulted in unknown results. For example, Etgar Keret, the describes how he goes around random peoples houses and asks him personal questions. One that impacted the relationship of Yonatan was when he goes into Sergei's house, “Sergei doesn’t like this, doesn’t like that the boy is almost at it, already reaching for the jar. In this instant Sergei understands the boy didn’t come for television, what he came for, specifically is to snatch Sergei’s fish, to steal it away.” This shows how your experience with each individual changed your relationship with them. This compares relatively to The Lottery because the society blindly followed a culture that was unknown to where it came from. As said in the text, “ The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, …” These two blind involvements caused the relationships with the people around them to change…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In many stories, settings are constructed to help build the mood and to foreshadow of things to come. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a story in which the setting sets up the reader to think of positive outcomes. However, this description of the setting foreshadows exactly the opposite of what is to come. In addition, the theme that we learn of at the end leads us to think of where the sanity of some human beings lies.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Margaret Thatcher Case

    • 4318 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Starting off as a woman in “a world where men were the only people who mattered” Margaret…

    • 4318 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays