At first glance‚ Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery" seems like a shocking horror story meant to thrill the reader with an unexpected twist and create a sense of uneasiness. The lottery‚ at first‚ appears to be left up to chance‚ and the ’winner’ is just one unlucky citizen of the village. However‚ if the reader takes on an analytical perspective while reading through this story‚ a common reference to ancient tradition surfaces. After considering the literary elements used‚ the underlying theme of barbarism
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In paragraph 1‚ readers are told that Victor lives on a reservation. What details elsewhere in the story establish this setting? What associations does this setting have for you? Do you think the story could take place anywhere else? -The other details that establish this setting is when they say‚ "So Victor called the tribal council." This association sets an understanding of how things work in a reservation. I do believe the story could have taken place in any other reservation. In addition to
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Setting in “The Lottery” The setting in a story helps to form the story and it makes the characters become more interesting. There are three main types of setting. The first is nature and the outdoors‚ second is objects of human manufacture and construction and the third is cultural conditions and assumptions. These three things help the reader to understand the characters better in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. “The Lottery” is started out by
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Is lottery a good idea? These days‚ a lot of people play lottery and spend a certain amount of money on it while few of them earn back what they spend. Someone says lottery is a kind of tax collected by the government on peoples’ luck and desire to be rich. In another aspect‚ lottery is also gambling‚ and it could make people to be a millionaire in a night if the person is lucky enough‚ however‚ it has a negative effect that it causes inequality‚ crimes and so on. So lottery is not a positive idea
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themes in stories. The magic behind motifs is that depending on how the author uses it they can help develop different themes in different ways. As seen in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe‚ “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor‚ where three different authors use death that can be interpreted to develop different themes. In “The Cask of Amontillado” the theme revenge can be perceived with Montresor’s wishes to make Fortunato pay for insulting
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we do what we’re told‚ but never questioning why we do things could lead to disastrous events. In The Lottery Shirley Jackson warns us about the dangers of blindly following tradition. Jackson’s use of foreshadowing‚ symbolism‚ and irony admonish the public of what could go wrong if we never question tradition. The story starts off with the town gathering around for the annual lottery. The men talk‚ the women gossip and children run around playing and gathering rocks. The gathering of
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“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
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the lottery‚ but not its exact purpose. Do the townspeople know? Is this omission significant? Intentional? No‚ the townspeople do not know the lottery’s exact purpose. This omission is not significant because it seems there is no point in the lottery and why these people are operating such horrid acts. It is more intentional; the townspeople are playing it safe thinking they are keeping a tradition‚ yet no one seems brave enough to ask why? 3. Why is much of the history of the lottery and
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JD Hatefi April 10‚ 2014 Essay 3; Arguable Essay Lottery: Winning is Losing Imagine a world where spending a dollar gives you millions in return. For the rest of your life you live comfortably because you took change out of your pocket. Everyone would right? That sort of ideal is exactly what makes the lottery one of the biggest grossing businesses to date. People from all around America spend a dollar on lottery tickets to hopefully win the jackpot of $656 million. Whether rich or poor‚ the
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The title‚ “The Lottery” is ironic for this story because during a lottery a person usually wins a prize. Wining a lottery is normally considered positive. When someone wins a lottery‚ that person is thrilled and extremely happy. Although in the story wining the lottery is not a positive thing because the person that wins the lottery would face a painful death. The only thing that the winner of the lottery would get is pain and grief‚ as the villagers would hit her with stones. The description in
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