Since the beginning of time, sin has corrupted mankind into the beings we are today. We are ruthless, selfish, and just plain hateful. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Since the fall when Eve ate the forbidden fruit, we are destined to be evil. In A. R. Coulhtard’s analysis of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” he demonstrates how mankind is naturally evil and why the custom continues to exist in the story. Many people try to make tradition the scapegoat for the actions of blind followers, but, in fact, there is one flaw with this idea; we still have free will. Some will try to argue that culture is so deeply sown into people that they have no choice but to follow these customs. They want to believe that deep down everyone is good, but the reality is we are all evil, selfish beings.
In the beginning of the story we come to a beautiful day in the village. With the title of the story and this wonderful scene, it is natural to assume that the “lottery” will change someone’s life for the good. It does in fact change someone’s life but not in the conventional way we might expect. Shirley Jackson starts off describing the characters and their excitement for the event to come. The boys “stuff[ed] their pockets… selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (Jackson). The ruthlessness that has rubbed off on these little children from their parents is heart stopping. Knowing that they are about to kill someone, they find the best rocks to throw. This shows the first main difference between doing something out of custom and out of an inner evil: the attitude it is being done with. This execution practice is not done with remorse but celebration. There are “square dances, t...
... middle of paper ...
...re good and not wicked at heart. When Jackson wrote it she said, “Millions of people, and my mother, had taken a pronounced dislike of me” (Coulthard) because they didn’t want to come to the realization that human nature is evil. Is there any hope for mankind if we are all evil? In the story the theme is exaggerated to catch the attention of the masses, but the point that Jackson is trying to get across isn’t exaggerated; evil is inherent in human nature. Until the eyes of the villagers are open to the sickness and evil of their practices, they will continue the lottery for generations to come.
Works Cited
Coulthard, A.R. “Jackson’s ‘The Lottery.’” Explicator 48.3 (1990). 226-228. EBSCO. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 13. Detroit: Gale. eNotes.com. January 2006. Web. 1 March 2011
“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.
Throughout the course of humanity, people have sought ways to promote a society where moral unification and motivation are present. It is essential for a community to coincide with such values; therefore, tradition and folklore are transcended though generations as customs which people follow mostly without question. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, such traditions are exploited through a futile box along with a brutal ritual which symbolizes the way a society might mindlessly abide by them and feel powerless to divert from such illogical acts. The storyline contains a constant tone which depicts normalcy to present normalcy itself as seen by the villagers, yet whispers eerie to the reader by setting up hints and indications of what is really occurring.
Hicks, Jennifer. "Overview of 'The Lottery'." Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
Certain societies rely heavily on tradition to uphold rules, regulations, and positions of power. Tradition allows for younger generations to relate to their elders by leading by example. Shirley Jackson wrote “The Lottery” in the late 1940’s, when society was dealing with the aftermath of World War II and the setting of the world was changing. Before the war, the world was more pleasant and safe. After the end of the war, America entered into a period of uncertainty and danger with the start of the Cold War and the boom of nuclear weaponry. In Jackson writing “The Lottery,” she is commenting on the time period saying that it was a time of unpredictability and immorality. She achieves this effect by using setting to depict the irony of the tradition of the lottery.
Why would a civilized and peaceful town would ever suggest the horrifying acts of violence can take place anywhere at anytime and the most ordinary people can commit them. Jackson's fiction is noted for exploring incongruities in everyday life, and “The Lottery”, perhaps her most exemplary work in this respect, examines humanity's capacity for evil within a contemporary, familiar, American setting. Noting that the story’s characters, physical environment, and even its climactic action lacks significant individuating detail, most critics view “The Lottery.” As a modern-day parable or fable, which obliquely addresses a variety of themes, including the dark side of human nature, the danger of ritualized behavior, and the potential for cruelty when the individual submits to the mass will. Shirley Jackson also addresses cruelty by the citizen’s refusal to stand up and oppose “The Lottery.” Violence and cruelty is a major theme in “The Lottery.”
Through the use of irony and a combination of an indifferent tone and an unknown, impassive narrator, “The Lottery” reveals the barbarism of human nature that results from blindly trusting and following traditions.
As old man Warner said, "There 's always been a lottery” (Jackson 4). This shows that the villagers have a lack of ability to change over time. No person in the town would stand up and say that this violent ritual was absurd, making them all out to be hypocrites just as Tessie was. Instead of doing so, one villager, Mr. Adams, comments that other towns around them were giving up the lottery, as if to suggest their town should do so as well. In reply old man Warner said, "Pack of crazy fools” (Jackson 4), and then, "Listening to the young folks, nothings good enough for them” (Jackson 4). Old man Warner can in a sense be seen as a symbol of the town and their lack of change. He disapproves of anything that isn’t what he views as a traditional social practice. Old man Warner’s quick defense of the lottery implies that he sees change as an attack on himself and his beliefs. Blindly following tradition can cause the rejection of non-conformity in a society, even those traditions that are full of
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the theme of the story is dramatically illustrated by Jackson’s unique tone. Once a year the villagers gather together in the central square for the lottery. The villagers await the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black box. Within the black box are folded slips of paper, one piece having a black dot on it. All the villagers then draw a piece of paper out of the box. Whoever gets the paper with the black dot wins. Tessie Hutchinson wins the lottery! Everyone then closes in on her and stones her to death. Tessie Hutchinson believes it is not fair because she was picked. The villagers do not know why the lottery continues to exist. All they know is that it is a tradition they are not willing to abandon. In “The Lottery,” Jackson portrays three main themes including tradition, treason, and violence.
In “The Lottery”, Jackson wrote about a special tradition of a small village. June 27th was warm and sunny, and it gave the impression like nothing could possibly go wrong. Everyone knows the lottery as an exciting thing, and everybody wants to win, but this lottery is unlike any other. This lottery was actually the tradition of stoning of an innocent villager; that year it was Tessie Hutchinson. Though the horrific ending was not expected, throughout the story Jackson gave subtle hints that this was not an average lottery. Jackson foreshadowed the death of Tessie Hutchinson with stones, the black box, and the three legged stool; she showed that unquestioning support of tradition can be fatal.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Gioia, Dana and R.S. Gwynn. The Art of the Short Story. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006. 390-396.
"The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice. The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens. On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate. Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice. Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about. Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective use of foreshadowing through the depiction of characters and setting. Effective foreshadowing builds anticipation for the climax and ultimately the main theme of the story - the pointless nature of humanity regarding tradition and cruelty.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner. Boston: New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2013. 242-249. Print.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1986. 862-868
The author of “The Lottery” wrote this story “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson 211). This story reflects human behavior in society to show how although rules, laws or traditions do not make sense, people follow them. Throughout the story the three main symbols of how people blindly follow senseless traditions were the lottery itself, the color black, and the hesitation that people had towards the prize.
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.