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Jackson’s The Lottery
Imagine year after year being forced to participate in an event that you did not accept all. You are doing it because everyone else is, because it is tradition. This is exactly what happens in “The Lottery”. The purpose of this essay is to explain the literary elements of this short story. Also I will explain how similar it is the famous “Hunger Games”.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is far from boring. It starts off at what seems to be a nice, sunny, summer day and families are in the time square. First, we see that children are playing, picking up stones and collecting them, putting them in piles. Then we see the men looking about and talking among themselves and women coming along to stand with husbands. By this
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They both held annual drawings that choose people for a ritual. The districts of The Hunger Games called it a "reaping" which chose two people to fight for their district having a great chance of being killed. "The Lottery" held a "lottery" which first drawn families then draws a person from that family to certainly be killed. First, the fear that was instilled in the people. In The Hunger Games, the people of the districts feared speaking out against President Snow because of the consequences they would face. While in The Lottery, the villagers were also very fearful of being condemned if they were to express opposing views.(Yarmove, 1994) Next is the free will of the two stories. There was no freedom at all in the way of living in The Hunger Games they had no say so in their lives. In The Lottery the villagers were pretty free living except when it came to the lottery itself, there was no way of getting out of that situation. Since the characters in both stories did not have free will, the conformed to the ways of the law. In The Hunger Games, there were strict rules to abide by, it was follow or die. No one would speak out against President Snow because of fear. In The Lottery, all villagers followed the routine of that day the people do not speak out just accept what it to be. Now in both stories, there are people in each story who finally speak out but for different …show more content…
Though it ended abruptly, it was full of symbolism, irony and plot twists. I am sure many people of her time found the story inappropriate. Shirley Jackson showed many people how cruel humans can be and how blind we are when it comes to traditions. In this short story, you see fear, lack of free will, conformity, and the will to
“The Lottery” is a short story about an event that takes place every year in a small village of New England. When the author speaks of “the lottery” he is referencing the lottery of death; this is when the stoning of a village member must give up his or her life. The villagers gather at a designated area and perform a customary ritual which has been practiced for many years. The Lottery is a short story about a tradition that the villagers are fully loyal to and represents a behavior or idea that has been passed down from generation to generation, accepting and following a rule no matter how cruel or illogical it is. Friends and family become insignificant the moment it is time to stone the unlucky victim.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson opens on a warm June day in unnamed village where people are waiting for the annual event which is the lottery. This ‘tradition’ is also held in other surrounding towns for a long time. Everyone in the town, including the children, participates in this event, yet not all of them are satisfied about it. Meanwhile some people show their dissatisfaction, yet they are unable to criticize this act directly. During the process of the lottery, which does not take more than couple of hours, some of the characters such as Mrs. Dunbar , Mr. and Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Hutchinson question the lottery, yet they are not voicing their protest clearly. This vagueness in showing dissatisfaction is related to the idea that most of the people in the town are accepting this ‘outdated’ trad...
The townspeople do the lottery because of tradition. Even though the lottery is hated, the lottery is still done because the townspeople do not know anything else. Both in The Hunger Games and “The Lottery,” there is much importance on tradition. In The Hunger Games, while everyone is gathering for The Reaping, no one seems to want to be there. The faces of those who are participating are nervous, serious, and even a little fearful.
“The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, is a provoking piece of literature about a town that continues a tradition of stoning, despite not know why the ritual started in the first place. As Jackson sets the scene, the villagers seem ordinary; but seeing that winning the lottery is fatal, the villagers are then viewed as murders by the reader. Disagreeing with the results of the lottery, Tessie Hutchinson is exposed to an external conflict between herself and the town. Annually on June 27th, the villagers gather to participate in the lottery. Every head of household, archetypally male, draws for the fate of their family, but Tessie protests as she receives her prize of a stoning after winning the lottery. Jackson uses different symbols – symbolic characters, symbolic acts, and allegories – to develop a central theme: the
1) The tone, mood or atmosphere in the story begins with that of happiness and euphoria, by setting us up with a wonderful day that most everyone would enjoy.
Written by Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” is a short story about a town that hosts an annual lottery that decides which person is stoned by the rest of the town. Jackson slowly and subtly builds the suspense throughout the story, only resolving the mystery surrounding the lottery at the very last moment, as the townspeople surround Tessie with their stones. The symbolism utilized helps demonstrate the overall significance of the story, such as the lottery itself. The lottery shows the way people desperately cling to old traditions, regardless of how damaging they may be. In addition, it can show how callous many will act while staring at a gruesome situation, until they become the victims. Jackson’s story presents the issue regarding the habit
The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a community that has a yearly lottery pull. The short story is set in a small town that is seemingly normal at first. Every year the town has a lottery pull, in which one person is chosen at random, to be stoned to death by all of their fellow townsmen. The lottery is a tradition that was started many years ago, and is kept alive by the current residents. By using symbolism, irony, and setting Jackson shows the true darkness within the entirety of the human race.
Shirley Jackson wrote many books in her life, but she was well known by people for her story “The Lottery” (Hicks). “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948, in the New Yorker magazine (Schilb). The story sets in the morning of June 27th in a small town. The townspeople gather in the square to conduct their annual tradition, the Lottery. The winner of the lottery will stoned to death by the society. Although there is no main character in the story, the story develops within other important elements. There are some important elements of the story that develop the theme of the story: narrator and its point of view, symbolism, and main conflict. The story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, argues practicing a tradition without understanding the meaning of the practice is meaningless and dangerous.
Both stories illustrate the consequences of blindly following traditions. In The Hunger Games, the story is based on twenty-four youth tributes from various districts being chosen to compete in the games. They are forced to kill one another while people from their districts watch in horror. The people that lived in these districts feared of being chosen to participate in the annual Hunger Games. The Capitol residents watch the traditional hunger games as entertainment. If people decide to bell against the Treaty of Treason, created by the Capitol, they would be executed in front of their district or the entire country of Panel. Likewise the villagers in “The Lottery” also lived in fear that one day they would be chosen to be stoned to death. In “The Lottery” citizens came together every year to participate in the lottery. Families are drawn and whichever family member picks out the piece of paper with a black dot, will get
Winning vast amounts of money can make anyone slaphappy, but unfortunately this type of wager won’t be discussed in Shirley Jacksons “The Lottery.” Jackson catches the reader’s attention by describing a typical day by using words such as “blossoming, clear and sunny skies” to attract the reader into believing a calm and hopeful setting which eventually turns dark. In this short story Jackson tells a tale of a sinister and malevolent town in America that conforms to the treacherous acts of murder in order to keep their annual harvest tradition alive. Jackson exposes the monstrosity of people within this society in this chilling tale. She allows the reader’s to ponder and lead them to believe that the lottery is actually a good thing; till she implements foreshadowing, to hint at the dreadfulness behind the lottery and its meaning. My goal in this paper is to discuss why Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a portrayed as a horror story, and the importance the townspeople used to glorify ritualistic killings, to appease to an unseeable force in return of good harvest for the upcoming year.
“The Lottery” is a story which shows the complexity and capability of human behavior. Something immoral, like stoning a person to death once a year, is a normal occurrence. The main character, Tessie Hutchinson, is the victim of the lottery. Tessie is a character with a number of seemingly good characteristics, yet her surrounding culture rejects these characteristics. The majority of the people in the village has opposite attitudes and beliefs in comparison to Tessie’s. These attitudes and beliefs reflect her personal desires which quickly struggle against the culture’s expectations. Tessie is unlike the other villagers; she is initially indifferent to the lottery indicating her desires are unrelated to the lottery. Upon winning the lottery, Tessie changes and her personal desires to survive and reject the lottery emerge in her selfishness and outspoken personality. These struggles against the village’s expectations are shown through the culture’s emphasis on tradition and small town ties.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is far from boring. It starts off at what seems to be a nice, sunny, summer day and families are in the time square. First we see that children are playing picking up stones and collecting them, putting them in piles. Then we see the men looking about and talking among themselves and women coming along to stand with husbands. By this time, one would think that the lottery is a great thing, it was being conducted by Mr. Summers who was in charge of many activities in the village. With Mr. Summers has a black box and Mr. Graves who has a three-legged stool. Soon all head of households had selected a piece of paper and all of the villagers seemed anxious, waiting to see who had won. The Hutchinson had drawn that
In "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson fills her story with many literary elements to mask the evil. The story demonstrates how it is in human nature to blindly follow traditions. Even if the people have no idea why they follow.
“The Lottery” is a story written by Shirley Jackson. By looking at the title you may think about money prize. In this story takes the readers expectation to another level. By the two words of the title there is no way the reader did not get hook to reading this story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson, uses symbolism, irony, and imagery.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th Ed. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Book.