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Ivan Dmitritch, a character in the short story “The Lottery Ticket” by Anton Chekhow, is unstable. In moments of believing he won the lottery, Ivan became materialistic. He fantasized about his “new life [and how] it will be transform[ed]” (pg 199). Ivan imagined all the things he desired instead of appreciating what he already had. This in fact shows that he is unstable as all he determines about is the rich life and not distinguishing that he isolated himself from the person who loves him the most; his wife. As a result of isolation, Ivan became paranoid. While Ivan continues to dwell about the rich life, reality hits him as he ponders about all the hardships, such as all the relatives coming and “begin[ning to whine] like beggars” (pg 201).
We can transform our life by altering our thinking process, and the stories by Shirley Jackson and Chris Abani emphasize on changing the thought. Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery”, conveys a great ironic tradition of a certain American community at some time in history, probably not that old. Similarly, “The Lottery” by Chris Abani also explores a similar tragic story about a loss of a life, and presents the life and survival as a lottery, which is never certain. In these regards, both these stories express a common theme of a traditional belief and a tragic end of a life but in a very contrasting fashion and settings.
Abcarian, Richard, and Marvin Klotz. "The Lottery." Literature: the Human Experience. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's, 2006. 350-56. Print.
Ivan Dmitrich belongs to a middle-class status and lives in a simple house with his wife Masha. He discovered that he had the winning number of the lottery ticket and began planning on what he will do on the money. But as he was imagining such things he forgot how satisfied he was in his life while Masha soon argue on partaking in the wealth. Unfortunately Ivan found out that his numbers do not match on the winning numbers. After realizing it, he went back to face the reality and live the life he
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.
It’s July 27th and everybody from a small community of around 300 people have gathered for its annual lottery. The leader of the community Mr. Summers leads the lottery. After going over the rules he has each of the head of households come and select a small folded white card from the inside of a box. These heads of the households include the fathers of the families, except in two cases where the father is deceased which leads to the oldest son being the head of the household, and a wife being the lottery participant because of her husband’s broken leg. After everyone has selected their cards Mr. Summers instructs them to open their cards. All of the cards are blank except one with a large black dot. Bill Hutchinson was the man who had the
What thoughts come to mind when you think of "The Lottery?" Positive thoughts including money, a new home, excitement, and happiness are all associated with the lottery in most cases. However, this is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s short story, "The Lottery." Here, the characters in the story are not gambling for money, instead they are gambling for their life. A shock that surprises the reader as she unveils this horrifying tradition in the village on this beautiful summer day. This gamble for their life is a result of tradition, a tradition that is cruel and inhumane, yet upheld in this town. Shirley Jackson provides the reader’s with a graphic description of violence, cruelty, and inhumane treatment which leads to the unexpected meaning of "The Lottery." Born in San Francisco, Jackson began writing early in her life. She won a poetry prize at age twelve and continued writing through high school. In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. After marriage to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a notable literary critic, she continued to write. Her first national publication “My Life with R.H. Macy” was published in The New Republic in 1941but her best-known work is “The Lottery.”(Lit Links or Reagan). Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to portray a story with rising action that surprises the reader with the unexpected odd ritual in the village. While one would expect “The Lottery” to be a positive event, the reader’s are surprised with a ritual that has been around for seventy-seven years , demonstrating how unwilling people are to make changes in their everyday life despite the unjust and cruel treatment that is associated with this tradi...
"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.
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 story of In "The Death of Ivan Ilych", was written by Leo Tolstoy around who examines the life of a man, Ivan Ilyich, who would seem to have lived an exemplary life with moderate wealth, high station, and family. By story's end, however, Ivan's life will be shown to be devoid of passion -- a life of duties, responsibilities, respect, work, and cold objectivity to everything and everyone around Ivan. It is not until Ivan is on his death bed in his final moments that he realizes that materialism had brought to his life only envy, possessiveness, and non-generosity and that the personal relationships we forge are more important than who we are or what we own.
This simple short story bleeds into the minds of its readers, and mixes into our perception of the world we know today. Eventually, the reader begins to connect the thought process and ideologies of the mentally deranged villagers within the story to those who exist or existed within the real world. We begin to peel away at our own society, and see that the same way of thinking which spawned these lotteries, held within the fictional world, may have counterparts in the real world, which is the truly perturbing fragment of this story. While each person who reads this tale...
In "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson, there are a series of traditions the story revolves around. The characters in the story don't seem to follow their traditions anymore. The story begins by explaining how the lottery works. The lottery takes place in many other towns. In this town it takes place on June 27 of every year. Everyone within town would gather at the town square, no matter what age. The black box is brought out and each head of the household pulls a small paper out of it. Only one of the papers will not be blank, it will have a black-penciled spot that is put on by the owner of the coal company. The black spot will send someone, from the family who chose it, to death. This is decided by a draw. The family member who pulls out the spotted paper will be stoned to death. After a long period of time, people forget the traditions by slowly disregarding as the years pass.
Anton Paviovich Chekhov’s The Lottery Ticket is a very dramatic story! Chekhov uses dialogue to reveal feelings and information about the characters. The author states “‘I should certainly go abroad too’ his wife said, ‘But look at the number of the ticket’” (Chekhov 3). The dialogue makes the reader feel happy that the wife can do what she wants. However, the reader is still unsure if they won the lottery or not. The reader knows a lot about the characters by the words they speak to one another. Also, the reader gets insight about how the main characters are reacting to the situations and how they feel by having dialogue in the story. To give the reader more information about the characters the book says, “‘Its very nice making daydreams at other people’s expense!’ is what her eyes expressed, ‘No don’t you dare” (Chekhov 4). The dialogue expresses how the husband and wife are both greedy because they want the money all to themselves and would do anything to get it. Chekhov uses words in the dialogue to make the reader feel unsure of what is happening between the husband and w...
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was written in 1948. The story takes place in a village square of a town on June 27th. The author does not use much emotion in the writing to show how the barbaric act that is going on is look at as normal. This story is about a town that has a lottery once a year to choose who should be sacrificed, so that the town will have a plentiful year for growing crops. Jackson has many messages about human nature in this short story. The most important message she conveys is how cruel and violent people can be to one another. Another very significant message she conveys is how custom and tradition can hold great power over people. Jackson also conveys the message of how men treat women as objects.
There is no better observation of human behavior combining both comedy and tragedy than a person of winning (or almost winning) a lottery. Money gained by chance does not seem to mesh well with human nature. In Chekov’s The Lottery Ticket the situation with Ivan and his wife is no exception.