The Use Of Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The Lottery was published in 1949, it is one of Shirley Jackson’s most successful stories and is particularly her most analyzed story. The secret to its success is embedded in the literature arising from Jackson 's use of many literary technic to evoke dramatic irony to its readers. This is an absurd story about the strange tradition. The story revolves around an annual lottery was held in the village and the winner will die because villagers will throw stones to him/her. This piece of story through a grim lottery to show the ruthless and indifference between people. They fill with folly for blindfold follow the traditional custom that cause the tremendous impact. It marks a significant signal that the old tradition will has a negative influence

This tradition catalyzes people become violence. There are some quotes to demonstrate an important ideas about how the cruel tradition affects people to act in violence. For instance, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lose the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.” This statement shows such a stupid traditional concept has been deeply rooted in local people’s minds. Even though the old ritual forgotten, but using stones was not forgotten. In some ways, it also reveals that the procedure of lottery has been held frequently. Using stones to kill the winner of the lottery become their habit. Another quote “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pocket full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones.” This quote shows people trust the old tradition blindly, they follow others without question. They believe violent behavior is logical and

During the traditional lottery, the author describes the town people are nervous and afraid. It makes the readers feel suspicious because the lottery should represent luck instead of scare. This is foreshadowing because at the end of the story, we know that the lottery represents death. The ending surprises us. For this foreshadowing, it infers the town people all know what is the meaning of this terrible lottery. However, no one try to take an action to stop it, even though they all afraid to win the lottery. Everybody just follow the ridiculous tradition without thinking about it. As the result, one of them became a oblation. Shirley Jackson is trying to tell us that blindly follow something will lead us in danger. In this story, the author doesn’t just tell us the message, she uses literary device foreshadowing to guide us to the centre of this