The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Analysis

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.
Laurie and Mr. Summers are both portrayed as characters who want to push the boundaries of the rules. Shirley Jackson made Mr. Summers a single man, who organizes the lottery. Mr. Summers doesn’t like the idea of the black box. The black box represents death and bad traditions in the community. Mr. Summers likes the idea
Shirley Jackson writes in “The Lottery” about the symbols representing tradition of the lottery. One symbol, is the black box which represents someone's future, which would be death. Most members in the community still believe this bad tradition set some type of standards. Old Man Warner explains how young people not making smart choices. In other words, he thinks they're taking one step backwards in their history. In “Charles”, Shirley Jackson states the theme in the first sentence. He wrote, “The day my son Laurie started kindergarten, he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt.” He later states Laurie walking with an older girl to school and not waving goodbye. When Laurie renounced his toddler outfit he claimed his independence and he gained control over his actions. Throughout the story Jackson repeats what Laurie's decisions are at school and at home, lying about who did it. Shirley Jackson had themes that would emphasize the importance of the
In “The Lottery”, Jackson starts off the story by describing the town on June 27. He first describes the uneasiness of all the children. He writes, “School was recently over for the summer, and the feelings of liberty sat uneasily on most of them.” The students were worried that her family could lose a person. Although, most of the town was scared, there were the little boys who were excited to throw stones and had them stocked up. Jackson makes the youth represent a carefree life. The girls end up being too busy looking for guys to be scared of the black box. They were taught this day, as tradition and that they cannot break tradition. Jackson made the reader want to continue to find out why June 27 was so important. He gave a similar effect in “Charles”. Jackson sums up the entire meaning of the story in the first sentence. The narrator says, “The day my son Laurie started kindergarten, he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me.” Jackson stated that Laurie wants to become an individual. The situations that Shirley Jackson