Theme Of Symbolism In The Lottery

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Symbolism in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
For most of us when you think of the word lottery you think of wealth, buying a new home, becoming debt free, and being able to afford things you once only dreamt of buying. Fooled by the positive connotation that comes with the word lottery, readers may be slightly baffled by the way the story “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson unfolds. The sun shining brightly along with the flowers blooming can easily portray an uplifting setting. Instead of using the lottery as a positive gamble of monetary gain, the author uses different literary techniques to display the lottery as a wager of life or death. Shirley uses symbolism to emphasize her theme of the dangers of blindly following tradition through the lottery itself, the black box
Sacrifice plays a large role in the acute community. It instills a form of obedience and loyalty towards the morbid tradition. Although tradition changes over time ; the villagers over all concept of sacrifice is never lost.

Jackson the author of The Lottery uses sacrifice to build an extremely original plot. Jackson wrote the story as if it were a favorable lottery to through off the readers consistency and twist the plot. Through out the story the author leaves helpful hints to make the theme apparent. For example when Jackson wrote ? Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of rock and the other boys started to follow his example?, and ?eventually made a great pile of stones in the corner of the square.? This sign of foreshadowing show?s what method of sacrifice is to be used within the short story.

The town had no other choice than to mastermind the lottery.
In The Lottery Old Man Warner said? Listen to those young folk, nothing?s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they?ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live like that for a while.? This quotes intent

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