Symbolic References in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Symbolism is a literary technique in which you find different meanings in even the

simplest sentences of the story and can reveal different ideas. In “The Lottery”, there

are numerous amounts of symbolism from beginning to end. In the short story “The

Lottery”, the entire village must gather to pick a paper out of a black box. Most of

the papers are white blank sheets and one with a black dot. The person who picks up

the black dotted paper will be sacrificed by stoning and will be used to harvest their

crops. Throughout the story, there were many symbolic references that are related to

the characters require and most of them are related to death, religion, and tradition.

One of the characters is Mr. Summers who represented life and fertility. As it states in

the article ( 123HelpMe ), “It is the season of growing, the season of life”. It also states

in the story, “It shows hot the sacrifice and the lottery itself is more important than the

new ideas presented by Mr. Summers and a few other villagers”. Summer is the season

where they would sacrifice someone because they believe the sacrifice will fertilize the

crops.

The next character that shows some symbolism is Old Man Warner. He is the oldest

citizen to participate in the lottery and believes everyone should participate for the sake

of the crops. As it states in the article ( 123HelpMe) “He has repeatedly shown ‘warning’

to the younger parents and the younger generation of what they’re in for if they do away

with the lottery”. Old Man Warner believes it’s ridiculous to give up the lottery and

should keep the tradition going or else they’ll be in trouble.

Another character that shows symbolism is Mr. Graves. His name represents ...

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...d the characters showed a

lot more symbolism within their names. Almost every sentence in a story can reveal

different clues and ideas, but you’re gonna have to think outside the box to figure it out.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery”. Heritage of American Literature. Ed. James E.

Miller. Vol.2. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. 1864. Print.

Cassel, Seth. “Symbols in ‘The Lottery’ “ Flamingnet. Litpick, LLC, Nov 2005. Web.

17 Mar 2014.

Shmoop Editors. “Symbolism, Imager, and Allegory: The Black Box and The Three

Legged Stool.” Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., n.d. Web. 17 Mar 2014.

Ma, Martine “Literary Analysis Essay: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Wordpress.

N.P. 10 June 2013. Web. 17 Mar 2014.

123 Help Me Editors. “Names in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery”. 123Helpme.

123Helpme, Inc, n.d. Web. 17 Mar 2014.