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Point of View Essay: the Lottery

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Dallas Smith Smith 1
Mrs. Bales
English Comp ll
29 March 2015
Point of View Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" uses the third-person limited point of view to tell a story about a village that celebrates an egregious, annual event. The narrator in the story shows many small details of the lottery taking place, but leaves the most important and thrilling detail until the end: the winner of the lottery wins the prize of being stoned to death by other villagers. The usage of third-person point of view, while adding a few bits of omniscient, is a convincing way of explaining this ironic narrative. The narrator uses third-person point of view by explaining information and actions to the reader to try and keep the reader off-balance of figuring out the conclusion.
"The Lottery" is predominantly told in the third-person limited point of view, but infrequently, the narrator becomes omniscient to uncover information to the reader, but in the story, the villagers know the event that is occurring. The minimal use of omniscient does not diminish from the narrative, and also effectually shows the reader of small details that do not repeat. Omniscient is an effective way of holding in the surprise till the very end.
The use of third-person point of view allows the narrator to use small specifics, for instance, the appearance and origination of the lottery box allows the narrator to show the reader meaningful hints without spoiling the ending. Stones are the weapons to kill the winner of the lottery, but the
Smith 2 information is explained plainly with not many specifics as the other meaningful details. Since the villagers' thoughts are never shown, the reader slowly notices in the villagers’ conversations, that this lottery is not anyone wants to win. This is the reason why the surprise is not revealed to the end.
The narrator sets the atmosphere for

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