The Lottery Rhetorical Analysis

In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author uses irony when he mentions the lottery, people interpret the lottery as wining a big price; money, however in this story winning the lottery is nothing more than a public stoning. The reader finds two meanings to the lottery, the literal one and metaphorical. The literal is that people are selected to win something, however, the metaphorical is that they are selected to be stoned to death in public. The setting for the story is very important and specific, it helps the reader understand why such acts, as the lottery, occur in this village. The setting is inspired in the suburbs of the Vermont community where the author lived most of her adult life. It takes place in a square town with “the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” A sense of cheerfulness fills the air, which gives a sense of foreshadowing that the lottery must hold importance because it is drawing every citizen to the center of the town. Another example of foreshadowing is when “Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square…” this implies the hidden fact that the stones are going to be for the winner, and the citizens are getting

The lottery can take to sense of conformity to the extreme evil and violent level. No one take a stand to make a rational opinion about the lottery being an inhuman, pointless, and brutal event. Old Man Warner dismisses the idea of getting rid with the lottery, “there’s always been a lottery, he added petulantly” (Jackson par.32), even young children are involved and attend cheerfully such brutality, “the children had stones already”. To the people the idea of dismissing the lottery is inconceivable, because they are to conformist to break a