...“The lottery” ENGL 202: Literature and Composition Spring 2013 Turbian Style Thesis: Death is the main theme of both short stories and both authors portrayed this dark and dreary idea as a game the characters are playing. Outline: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson vs. “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell I. Introduction: a. Traditional acts and survival instincts is the key to win or lose the game of death b. Will one allow society or your own reasoning decided if one survives the game of death c. The battle of death is the game that no one knows the result of until the end II. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson a. Jackson portrayed death as a fun family oriented game b. All people of the village, children, men and women gather on a beautiful summer day to stone one innocent person as a tradition c. The bystander effect plays a role in the death of the villagers d. The villager loses the battle of death because society blindly practices traditions, good and bad, unquestionably III. “The Most Dangerous Game” a. In “The Most Dangerous Game” Connell portrayed death as a Hunter’s game. b. The General is the hunter and Rainsford is the Prey. Man vs. Man c. The game of death is put to the test for three days d. Man wins he battle against death using animal instinct and human reasoning IV. Conclusion e. “In the Lottery” the villager lost her battle of death due to others but in “In The Most Dangerous Game”...
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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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...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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...Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” isn’t quite what it seems. The misleading title fills the reader with a sense of excitement and hope of winning something, much like the modern day lottery, yet this short story is far from that reality. As a decades old tradition, the lottery drawing is conducted once every year throughout the village to find one winner, or victim, who is singled out by the community. The person who draws the paper with a black dot on it faces being stoned to death by the villagers. In Jackson’s “The Lottery,” customs and traditions normalize unspeakable acts and inhumanity for the townspeople. Jackson offers a great deal of irony by having the setting be in a small village of “only about three hundred people” (539). By illustrating...
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...Everyone follows tradition, whether it's good or bad. Shirley Jacksons short story " The Lottery" shows how a village participates in a horrendous tradition that nobody can't seem to forget. The lottery is an old tradition in where each member of every family must draw a paper to determine who will be stoned to death that year. Jackson is sure to use literary devices throughout the short story to describe the village, the people, and the tradition itself which ends with taking someone's life. One of the literary devices that Jackson uses is foreshadowing. The first example takes place in the second paragraph where it reads, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting...
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...“The Lottery” is a short story that would have most people thinking and feeling good at the beginning. At the end, however, they learn the ironic truth that the reward is death. In the small village, the villagers repeat this horrific tradition of picking a person at random and stoning them to death without question. Jackson shows us how easily and willingly we will follow a tradition for no other reason than that’s just how things are. In her short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson shows us the blind following of tradition and the slow deterioration of the tradition through the use of symbols such as the black box, the Lottery, and Old Man Warner. The black box represents how the villagers really feel about the tradition. Every year they...
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...how the lottery is being given up in the north village. Mrs. Adams also speaks of the vast amount of places that have already quit lotteries. However, Old Man Warner states, "Listening to the young folks, 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 hat way for a while. Used to be a saying about '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" (Shirley Jackson 5). From the word of Old Man Warner, we are given an understand of selection bias at hand (Janis). Old Man Warren believes that the people of the town would not be civilized or sophisticated without the lottery. He makes them believe that the only way to keep order in the town is to continue using the lottery. This is why the people believe that the lottery is morally...
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...Violence isn't just a thing that makes someone feel physical pain, violence can also harm a person mentally. Shirley Jackson set many examples of violence both physically and mentally in her short story, The Lottery. One of the first forms of violence is when Tessie and her family were challenged mentally. In order for the lottery to choose a person to stone, it must first choose a family. When Tessie found out that her husband had been chosen, she was not very happy. Bill had been chosen, and that meant that one person from their family will be slaughtered. “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper you wanted.” Tessie exclaimed with great anger and annoyance (Jackson 5). Tessie continued to say “It wasn’t fair” and was told she was...
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...of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Shirley Jackson, author of “The Lottery”, was born in San Francisco in 1919, but moved to Rochester, New York when she was a teenager. She later attended the University of Rochester, but due to a bought severe depression, which would plague her throughout her entire life, she had to drop out of school. Jackson later graduated from Syracuse University, and soon moved with her husband. Stanley Edgar Hyman, to Bennington, Vermont. While there she devoted herself to writing a fixed amount of words each day. Pieces she wrote varied from novels, The Road Through the Wall, various psychological thrillers such as Hangsaman, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and many articles for various magazines including Good House Keeping, generally about the difficulty of housekeeping and raising 4 children. Jackson claims that her motivation for writing the magazine articles was for the money they provided. “The Lottery” was published in The New Yorker in 1948, and that specific issue of the magazine was very quickly sold out. When Jackson first sent the story to the publisher, Harold Ross, he wasn’t exactly sure what the story was about nor what the meaning was. He called Jackson and asked if she had anything to tell the readers if they were to call up to the magazine asking questions about the story, and she simply responded with “No.” To her it was simply a story that she has written. When asked about it later Jackson said that...
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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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...In this text written in 1948 by Shirley Jackson, we can see different elements interacting with each other to make a complete idea of what it is about. We can see the female population is not treated the same as us now and there are some stereotypical characterizations we can see to prove this, like the lack of power. They were submitted to their husband and society. We can also see their roles in this text. First of all, the women in this short story don’t have any sense of power or influence on the general population, like their husband or other males. ‘’The Lottery’’ can only be picked by the heir or responsible of the family, a man. The woman cannot take her own paper, because she doesn’t have enough power or responsibility to take the...
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...Prejudice is the preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the setting is described as a small village of 300 people. Every June 27th the town holds a “lottery.” This lottery is revealed to be a death sentenced for one unfortunate villager. The town members gather with their families in the town square and each head of the household draws a sheet of paper. The sheets of paper are exposed at the same time. Bill Hutchinson had drawn the sheet with the dreaded block dot. The box is emptied and restocked with five sheets of paper for each member of the Hutchinson family. Each member of the family draws a sheet from the box, and reveal at the same time. Tessie...
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...How far would you go to keep tradition going? In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson tradition plays a major role. The characters in this ironic story take keeping tradition to another level. Old Man Warner who is the “oldest man in town” says that there is an old saying that states, “lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” The lottery is an event that occurs place every year. Basically everyone in their village assembles and someone's life is sacrificed for their harvest. Each family has one person to draw for their family. If a person draws the white paper that has a black dot on it, then everyone in their family has to draw. Finally, the family member that draws the paper with the dot gets stoned. Ultimately this short story is full of characters such as, Mrs. Delacroix and Tessi Hutchinson, who are good and evil natured....
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...Persecution is the hostility and ill treatment, especially because of race, political, or religious beliefs. In the story "The Lottery" the author Shirley Jackson created a Gothic Ficttion story to represent randomness of persecution. In "The Lottery" every townsmen in the village gathered together to pull random names out of an old black box. The random names were the names of people who lived in the small town. If their names happened to be drawed, it was mandatory that they were killed by whoever pulled their name. This story shows the randomness of persecution through the literary devices of characterization, symbolism, irony, and startle factor. In the small village of townsmen, including children, their names went inside the chipped...
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