Theme Of Literary Greatness In The Lottery

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Literary Greatness For starters, what is literary greatness? Simply it is why people believe that something is a great piece of work. The author must meet their goal by moving the reader throughout the piece and invoke thought. Therefore, Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” is a perfect example of literary greatness. When people read the title of Jackson’s story, they all think of the same thing, and that is someone must have won a lot of money. However, in this particular story Jackson did the complete opposite of what anyone would have expected. Basically, “The Lottery” is about a small town that gets together once a year for a mandatory drawing ran by a guy named, Mr. Summers. During the drawing each person comes up and grabs …show more content…

Jackson wanted people to know how dumb they can be, by not even attempting to stop such meaningless traditions. The only history in the story as to why they tradition started is because of an old wise tale. The townspeople from way back when believed that by having a lottery it lead to a bountiful harvest of corn. Believe it or not, there are even traditions that are still going on today and are completely uncalled for. Thankfully there are some people out there who agree, like Jim Breslin. In Breslin’s article, “The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: My Review,” he describes how chilling her story makes him feel. He states this tradition was started because of an old superstition that townspeople long before believed, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon…This superstition held by the townsfolk is what makes this piece so ominous. The town becomes a pack of wolves based on their superstition” (Breslin). This whole tradition was started because of one stupid person. Actually, that individual is not the only one who is an idiot because everyone in the town during that time agreed that it would be a good idea to kill someone for good year harvesting. Hopefully, everyone now a days knows that by having a ‘lottery’ has nothing to do with the results in the field. This tradition that was created, is just absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately, not a single person of the town have ever attempted to stop …show more content…

It is interesting because majority of the people who do not like this story do not give a good explanation as to why. A few of the comments these people have said were things like, “I frankly confess to being completely baffled by Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery.’ Will you please send us a brief explanation before my husband and I scratch right through our scalps trying to fathom it?” (Franklin). This quote by Miriam Friend was only stating how she just did not like the story. Like a lot of these people who complain that this story is so ‘horrific’ must have not taken enough time to try and understand Jackson’s point. Friend had given no reasoning to her point besides the fact she obviously did not like it. Jackson did an excellent job trying to describe how traditions can easily consume a town, no matter how pointless they are. Another reader who had written to Shirley Jackson, was Camilla Ballou, “I read it while soaking in the tub… and was tempted to put my head underwater and end it all” (Franklin). Once again, nothing Ballou said was about anything specific in the story, she just stated how it made her feel. This story is not supposed to be all sunshine and roses, because it falls under the genre of horror. A lot of readers are still stuck in the ‘tradition’ that stories are supposed to be enlightening: not horrific. Therefore, a lot of people

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