...than not, “because it’s tradition”. It can never be answered because for the most part, no one truly knows where certain traditions came from and just have come the conclusion that they are not meant to question it. In the case of the people in, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, they have the same fear of breaking what has been a lifelong tradition in their town. While the opening scenes depict a glorious day full of happy town members, Jackson is planning on turning the day into a treacherous one by the end of the story. Throughout the story, Jackson is using an array of symbols to give an uneasy feeling to the reader. These symbols are used to help portray the idea that by accepting these traditions can lead to terrible consequences. Looking at the title of this short story is something that is very important to what Jackson is trying to convey within the rest of the story. The lottery, in general, is a celebration of someone who has won. Although it is the case that someone does “win” in Jackson’s story, it is not the kind of winning that most people would celebrate. As for the people within the town, it is more that they are celebrating not being picked as opposed to being the one that has won. By using the lottery as the title of this short story, Jackson is setting the reader up to believe that the end result will be a joyous one but instead it is the exact opposite. This then becomes a symbol of what can happen when traditions are not questioned by future generations...
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...be passed down from generation to generation but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question them. Jackson uses symbolism, of the black box, characters’ names, and the title of the story itself to develop the theme of everyday violence and ignorance of tradition. One way Jackson uses symbolism is through the mystery of the black box because of its color and age. The black box was not just a regular box it was beaten up with all kinds of wood splitting from the box and the color “was no longer completely black, but splintered badly on one side” (Jackson 391). This just doesn't represent a drawing box, it was religious...
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...husband and son are away in town. In “The Lottery”, it is about how a town goes through a lottery to complete a village ritual. Each short story has its individual purpose. Although the authors do now know each other, the poems can be used together to explain the significant of symbolism. In the short stories, we see that the symbolism of the storm and the lottery has huge significance to the overall concept of the story. In the “The Storm”, the storm holds literal and figurative significant to the story. For the story, the storm is the base of the story and the...
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...“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is one of the most interesting short stories there are. Jackson described her purpose of writing by stating her it as, “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Backpack p. 236). That quote alone is shown throughout “The Lottery” because there is most definitely a shock factor at the end of the story. A reader almost must read it twice to fully comprehend all that goes on in the town square of Jacksons’ story. However, as one reads “The Lottery”, one can identify many comparisons using symbolism and when one reads the story again, one can identify even more symbols. In Shirley Jacksons’ short story, “The Lottery”, there are many different items in the book like names, a three-legged table, a black box, and stones to show symbolism and allegory throughout the story. Jackson places her symbols in a specific order and it is that order in which the symbols have the most impact. The first symbol that comes along in the story is Mr. Summers. Mr. Summers is described as, “a...
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...In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson shows us how some people blindly follow tradition just simply because it's tradition. Shirley expresses how extreme people can go to practice tradition or how blindly they can be followed and uses characterization and symbolism to prove it. Shirley uses characterization in her short story to convey her theme of blindly followed tradition. One character she uses for this is old man warner, which is the oldest man in the town and therefore has dealt with most lotteries. While everyone is gathering together he says . “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery”(Warner 33). When old man warner says...
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...In contrary to today’s meaning of the “Lottery”, Shirley Jackson creates her own meaning of “The Lottery,” putting a spin on the preconceived definition. In the beginning of the short story, the author sets a false scene of a nice sunny day with children “playing” and collecting stones and pebbles. Unknown to the reader, the kids and villagers are “blindly” setting up a terrible Shirley Jackson speaks directly to the reader through the use of symbolism to develop the theme of conformity. The quote “The women, wearing faded houses dresses and sweater…” exemplifies the topic of compliance by the plain, flat dresses with no distinction between each other (Jackson 255). Shirley Jackson is trying to show the reader through the type of clothing that the women wore that the people of the village were not interesting characters meaning they were unlikely to do for themselves but follow the crowd and the way of life that already existed within the village. In a sense, Shirley Jackson was using the color of the dresses to take away their personal voice and opinion in the matter. As the lottery was about to begin the women had found the sides of their husband to gather at the center obediently....
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...It’s strange how people think traditions are meant to be special and known and are supposed to mean on that day. That these days usually come around once or twice every year. People cherish a holiday and know its meaning and symbolism. However, traditions are now always special. Symbol has an effect on a story’s meaning and its indication. “The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson that illustrates a yearly tradition done by people living in a village. In the story, the main character, Tessie Hutchinson, is killed by stones thrown by her fellow neighbors, which makes the setting cruel and very inhumane. “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held hands out desperately as the villagers moved in...
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...The most intriguing aspect of “The Lottery,” is the ability of the story to topple the reader’s expectations of what is going to happen as people blindly follow ancient rituals. Judging from the title of the work and the first few paragraphs, the reader probably assumes that the story instills a sense of hope and fortune. Based on societal norms, the winner of a lottery is generally rewarded a prize. As the story progresses however, the reader begins to realize that this story isn’t about a normal lottery as we know it. It is an annual gathering to uphold a village tradition in which one person is chosen to be stoned to death. This realization is not what was expected based on the hopeful title and peaceful opening paragraphs of the story....
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...Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” takes place in a modern day village, but every year a ritual known as the lottery takes place. A randomly person is stoned to death when that person chooses a specifically marked piece of paper in a black box filled with blank pieces of paper. Many objects in “The Lottery” represent things we are more familiar with. For example, the black box represents death. Jackson uses this symbolism to help communicate the story’s meaning. The black box from which the people pick the pieces of paper represents the lottery’s history. It is first introduced just before the lottery begins. It is said to have existed there before the oldest man, Old Man Warner, was born. This shows that the lottery has been around for a long...
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...The short story, “The Lottery”, was written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. Shirley Jackson wrote it while she was living on Prospect Street in North Bennington, Vermont. It took her less than two hours to write this story. “The Lottery” is a story about a sacrifice that’s made on the same day every year where a lottery determines which family, and which individual of the family, gets stoned to death. There are many different pieces of symbolism in this story. One of the items in this story that uses symbolism, and probably the most important, is the black box. It represents the tradition of the lottery and the illogic of the villagers’ loyalty to it. “The black box grew shabbier each year” (2), and it was “splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained” (2), showing it’s age, meaning that the lottery has been going on for a long, long time. They are unwilling to replace it. They plan on replacing it each year, but they never do. They are attached to it because a story claims that the box is made of pieces of...
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...The author of “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson, uses location, scenery, two items, and names hidden in symbolism and allegory to describe the true meaning of this strange and creepy short story. The title “The Lottery” makes readers believe it is about money or winning something valuable. Surprisingly the ending is not associated with any type of lottery yet portrayed with murder and the act of stoning innocent people to death. At the beginning of the story, Jackson describes the setting, as a place where the “grass was richly green” and “flowers were blossoming profusely” which makes the reader think it is a happy town full of happy people, which it is not. Jackson began her story like that to distract the reader from the true meaning of what the towns people to do each other. It is a place where killing innocent person...
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...The world today has faced many trials and tribulations. It is quite similar to the two short stories ‘Young Goodman Brown” and “The Lottery.” In these stories, characters are faced with situations beyond their own imagination and to makes things worse is how they are tested. They will encounter people and other things that are unjust. These stories bring a lot of comparisons such as the setting of the stories, but mostly there are contrasts such as the symbolism within the stories and the meaning each author put behind their stories. In comparing the two short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Lottery,” it is easily noticed that both of these stories takes place well within the community setting. Each story has the involvement of the people who lives within the town. Details in the story showcase how the communities makes the characters feel accepted one way or another to a certain extinct. Within these communities, each has their own traditions, laws, and perimeters that justify the reasoning behind what they do. In turn it kind of makes these communities have a sense of uniqueness to them and that is why individuals are pulled in and want to be part of these communities. In addition, both of these stories showcase a sense of a happy ambience and exuberance. In “The Lottery,” the author, Shirley Jackson illustrates a perfect day by stating “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with a fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely...
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...“The lottery,” symbolism is used to hint at the overall theme of the story. In Shirley Jackson's short story “The Lottery,” symbolism is used to hint at the overall theme of the story. The lottery in this particular story is not used for good fortune but instead is used for death and sacrifice. Jackson combines characters, objects, and actions to create the symbolism. There are many characters, both major and minor, that demonstrate symbolism in this story. Jackson uses seemingly normal people from an apparently normal town. The postman is named Mr. Graves, a name that symbolizes death. He holds a leading role as an official in the lottery. Mr. Summers is another character who holds a major role. His name projects thoughts of summer and the season of life. His name is ironic due to the dark ritual and the part he plays in the lottery. Jackson uses various symbols to portray this grim event along with particular elements that hint towards the ending of the story. The story shows the coldness people can have which can be seen in their values and tradition. The black box is a symbol of the past. The color black represents evil or death. The box embodies the past and shows what’s to come. In the story, the villagers were afraid to even follow Mr. Summer’s idea for making a new box because they did not want to upset tradition. While the lottery was taking place, Mr. Adams said to old man Warner, “over in the north village they are talking about giving up the lottery… “Pack...
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...A Comparison of Symbolism in “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Lottery” Symbolism is when the author uses an object or reference to add deeper meaning to a story. Symbolism in literature can be subtle or blatant; it can also be used sparingly or considerably. An author may repeatedly use the same object to convey deeper meaning or may use variations of the same object to create an overarching mood or feeling. Many authors use symbolism to further foretell and capture the important elements of the story. Both Nathaniel Hawthorne in “Young Goodman Brown" and Shirley Jackson in “The Lottery’, use symbolism in these short stories. The stories both contain symbols describing evil. Hawthorne’s symbolism describes good versus evil, while Jackson's symbolism reflects the evil nature within society as a whole. The first two characters that Hawthorne introduces, Young Goodman Brown and his wife Faith, are both symbolic in their names. Brown's name symbolizes youth and good nature. Brown is a young man throughout the story, and his youth suggests that he has yet to be corrupted by the world and is still innocent. Hawthorne writes, "Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons on her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown" (Hawthorne 331). Faith’s name symbolizes the trust and virtue that is found within a good wife. It may also hint at the faith that Young Goodman Brown struggles to hang Haney 2 onto. As...
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...Velma Johnson English 200-E81 July 5, 2014 “The Lottery” foreshadows and settings Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery”, this story filled with symbolism. The author uses symbolism to help her represent human nature as tainted, no matter how pure one thinks of himself or herself, or how pure their environment may seem to be. The story is very real in raising many questions about the pointless nature of humanity regarding tradition and violence. “The Lottery” clearly couriers Jackson's feelings concerning mankind’s evil nature hiding behind traditions and rituals. She shows how coldness and lack of compassion in people can exhibit in situations regarding tradition and values. Jackson presents the theme of this short story with a major use of symbolism. Symbolism shows throughout the setting of “The Lottery”, the objects, the people’s actions, and even in the time and the names of the lucky contestants. The setting of the story helps to magnify its impact on the reader because it is set in a small town similar to the one many of us may know of, and that is symbolic of everything that we consider to be right in America. The story begins on a magnificent summer day in a small town. The author describes the day as very joyful but strikes a contrast between the surroundings of the town and the atmosphere of the people gathered in the square. The atmosphere is sober, where the adults, stood together, away from the stones in the corner, and their “jokes were quiet and they smiled rather...
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