...The Lottery The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, is a short story about an annual lottery draw in a small town. The story sets place in a small town in New England. Every year a lottery is held, in which one person is to be randomly chosen to be stoned to death by the people in the village. The lottery has been practiced for seventy-seven years by the townspeople. By using symbolism, Shirley uses names, objects, and the setting to conceal the true meaning and intention of the lottery. The names of each character in this story hold significant meaning to the lottery. The name "Delacroix" is an example. In" The Lottery," Shirley explains "the villagers pronounced this name 'Dellacroy'." According to Nathan Cervo "[I]n French, 'Delacroix' means "of the Cross'" (Cervo). Incorrect pronouncing this word provoked the Christian symbol of martyrdom. Another the exam is the name "Summer." summer is, as Amy A Griffin describes, "a time usually associated with cheerfulness" (Griffin). In "The Lottery" Summer is the name of a businessman who is responsible for conducting the Lottery. Ironically, Mr. Summer is assisted by Mr. Graves--the word "grave" usually represents for death. By naming the conductor of the Lottery Summer and Grave, respectively, the author implies that there will be an unfortunate event during the summer. Altogether, the symbolic names above play a role as a forewarning note of an unfortunate outcome of "The Lottery." As well as the character's names, each object in...
Words: 871 - Pages: 4
...The Lottery Today, there are many traditions that people take part in but have no idea why. It seems that whatever someone grows up seeing the people around them doing, they will do as well. For example: popping fireworks on New Year’s and July 4th, or trick-or-treating on Halloween. Most people don’t know why they do these things, it’s just tradition. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, it’s a tradition for the people to hold a lottery every year and most of them don’t even know why. From little kids on up to senior citizens, everyone in the village participates in the lottery. The lottery is where the 300 people living in the village gather together and everyone draws a slip of paper from a box. Whoever’s paper has a black dot in the center gets stoned to death by the rest of the villagers. It doesn’t seem like something that someone would want to partake in, but everyone does simply because its tradition. This story is a prime example of why blindly following tradition is weak. Anything that a person does in this world, they usually know why they are doing it, and most of the time it’s because they choose too. However, when it comes to tradition most people do not know why they are participating in certain things; and in situations like this one, that could be dangerous. The author starts the story with a sense of liberation. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass...
Words: 925 - Pages: 4
...Susan Opino ENG 201-0905 02/27/2016 Paper 1: The Lottery 998 words Whenever we hear about a lottery, the word invokes quite naturally, a sense of hope-the expectations of winning something. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” further confirms the sense of hope in the first few paragraphs. It’s a beautiful summer day, the grass is green, flowers are blooming, kids are playing. But in the ensuing paragraphs, we start to see that something is not quite right in this environment of hope. It is the following of an annual ritual. This is the 77th celebration, which means that they are archaic in some way and rooted in traditions of superstitions that seem to involve crops and human sacrifice. The thoughtless following of rituals in “The Lottery”, is appalling, but not as much as the mindless rituals observed by the modern society. Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery”, is set in a small New England town. The inhabitants are gathered in the the small town square. Its June 27th, on a beautiful summer day. They are in a convivial mood for a yearly ritual, “The Lottery”. Mr. Summers, who seem to be in charge of the the assembly brings forth a black box with hundreds of slips of paper inside. Names of all family members in the town are collected. Bill Hutchinson draws a slip of paper with a dark spot meaning that his family has been chosen. The drawing continues in the second round for each individual family member to draw; regardless of age. After the drawing is over, Tessie Hutchinson...
Words: 1009 - Pages: 5
...PAPER INTERDICIPLINARY LITERATURE “THE LOTTERY” [pic] Compiled by : Nida Agniya Septiara (F1F010038) Laeli Fadilah (F1F010052) Lisa Ayu Christiana Putri (F1F010022) Yunita Marangin Lumbantoruan (F1F010084) JENDERAL SOEDIRMAN UNIVERSITY SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE FACULTY HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT ENGLISH LITERATURE 2013 INTRODUCTION In this paper, we would like to highlight in the point of view of woman. We think it is interesting enough to be discussed. Shirley Jackson seems want to deliver a message related with woman position in the society in the period of the making of the novel. We see that the male character on this story mostly has good position and description while the female character only became a minor character which didn’t have any significant position in the novel. Eventhough the major character, Tessie Hutchinson, is a woman but she got ironic destiny in the end of the story. Many sentences and phrases are quoted through the article to illustrate the women's weakness and the men's power, the notion usually called “men’s control of the dominant discourse” in Beauvoir's words. There are some keys in the story showing that women are not satisfied with their ways of lives and try to change their current situation. 1. Woman’s order is less considered than man’s order ...
Words: 1124 - Pages: 5
...The Lottery Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory Sometimes, there’s more to Lit than meets the eye. The Lottery The lottery is like an 800-pound gorilla of symbols in this story. It's in the title, for Pete's sake. Where do we even begin? Well, let's start with the lottery as a way of upsetting reader expectations. After all, communities across America practice different annual traditions – Easter egg hunts (with origins in early fertility rituals), Christmas tree decorating (check out those patron trees of the Germanic tribes), or July 4th fireworks (well, that one just celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence ...). Anyway, our point is that we're all comfortable with yearly rituals – and it's often not widely known how these celebrations began. See how tradition obscures the history of public ritual? Anyway, back to the lottery. So, we associate lotteries with good things (winning cash prizes!) and annual celebrations also seem pleasant. We talk about this in "What's Up With the Title?" so we'll just say here that, like the blooming, cheerful village itself, there's nothing in the lottery that immediately suggests anything is wrong with this set-up. The lottery is, in fact, operating as an allegory of village life itself: at first, it seems harmless, but then we start to wonder what's going on with all the subdued smiles and piles of stones. So, if the lottery is an allegory of the community, its rules and proceedings must in some way correspond to real-life...
Words: 2958 - Pages: 12
...Stanley Edgar Hyman. Throughout the years Shirley went on to create several novels, one in particular is The Lottery. In The Lottery Shirley uses irony to provide readers with a twisted tale that shocks readers in the end. The plot as a whole is filled with ironic twists. All of the villagers seemed to act very nonchalant considering the seriousness of the consequences of the lottery. We see how the villagers of the small New England town abandon their normal lives to gather and conduct their annual lottery. The townspeople prepare themselves by gathering many rocks for the ceremony as if this was a day to day activity. The sole purpose for the lottery is for human sacrifice which was suggested that the townspeople feared that their crops will not be full and hearty. Shirley Jackson proves that the villagers don’t plan on ending the traditional ceremony which has a long history. Even after hearing the other towns ending the lottery, he dismisses them as “crazy fools,” and states that if the lottery stops, they will be forced to eat “chickweed and acorns.” What’s so ironic about The Lottery is that it is so deeply embedded in the townspeople and even though they can’t remember the original reason for the lottery they continue to hold on anyhow. According to the dictionary lottery means to distribute something among people by lot or by chance and the lucky winner of the lottery reaps the benefits of his/her luck and wins the prize of whatever being drawn. However, in...
Words: 544 - Pages: 3
...Essay topic: Should I play lottery and why, why not! A lottery is a process whose outcome is dependent on chance such that the lottery player has no certainty on the outcome. It is probabilistic in nature and is dependent on the number of players, the more the players, the risker the lottery hence the lower the chances of winning. Consider a lottery where in one case the participants are One hundred and in the other are a thousand; the probabilities would be a hundredth and a thousandth respectively meaning the chances of winning the earlier case is higher than the later. Playing a lottery would be a good investment idea whose favorable success implies a sudden glory to wealth acquisition based on the amount of lottery bid. To play a lottery one has to be a risk taker since in itself lottery involves a higher risk and as an investor, the higher the risk the higher the returns. In essence therefore the lottery player has to factor in a lot of risk since the whole idea is a gamble. Before playing lottery, one has to ask several questions for instance; whether it is a good idea to get in to the game or not? With the money factor in mind the other question would be; would I get more or less money in the lottery? Such questions inform the action one would take. Economics reasoning rule dictates that a player would have to continue playing until you get all the money. This is a notion in itself is not sufficient since by probability and the theory of chance one will never get...
Words: 831 - Pages: 4
...2012 “The Lottery” The ending of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a surprise. However, there are numerous hints and clues that foreshadow what is to come. The lottery is conducted by Mr. Summers. Mr. Summers, the lottery official, arrives in the town square where all the villagers have gathered. He carries with him the first of the major symbols Jackson employs in her story, a lottery box. The reader does not know until the very end of the story that the lottery is about death and sacrifice, but the box itself reveals hints of its true purpose. The box is black, old, and decaying , “The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained ( 137; par 5) . In many cultures, black is often associated with death. When Mr. Summers calls her family's name to draw a lottery ticket, Tessie Hutchinson tells her husband, "Get up there Bill" (139; par. 29). However, when Bill draws a black-dotted Lottery ticket, Tessie puts up quite a protest, saying "It wasn't fair" (140; par. 51). She claims her husband was rushed and did not have time to pull the ticket he really wanted. Later, when Tessie pulls the ticket with a black dot during the Hutchinson family drawing, she continues ranting with similar protests. At this point, winning the lottery doesn’t seem to be a good thing. Another hint to this not being a happy occasion, is the lottery beginning...
Words: 544 - Pages: 3
...The Lottery 1. Do you think the characters in ‘The Lottery’ are hypocritical in their relationships with other people in town? Explain. Hypocrisy, which means a sudden shift in opinions or loyalties, happens to be an inborn human trait for most people. ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson happens to be so eerily similar to our current situations which make her story relatable and a classic. Jackson starts off the story with a sort of tranquility and normalness with the existence of a friendly town with neighbourly townsmen on a summer’s day which surprisingly takes a turn for the worse in the last few paragraphs, taking readers by surprise when the backstabbing happens. ‘The Lottery’ portrays the darkest sides of human traits, one of which is hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is demonstrated in a few instances within the story. The townspeople had mixed opinions about the lottery, fearing it but enjoying it when the stoning even happens. They stood away from the pile of stones collected and kept their distance from the black box, displaying their fear of the lottery. When they found that it was not them who was going to get stoned, they eagerly participated in the stoning of Tessie which is shown in the phrase ‘and then they were upon her’. One of the villagers even gave some stones to Tessie’s youngest son to throw them at his mother. Mr. and Mrs. Adams talk of stopping the lottery, yet when the time comes to stone someone, Mr. Adams was seen leading the pack. Tessie was killed...
Words: 773 - Pages: 4
...Andrea Rhodes “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson can be described as an interesting and eerie take on urban communities and the complex social lives of people today. Jackson begins by describing this seemingly normal town gathering, where children are playing, adults are conversing, and a winner for a lottery pick is about to happen. It turns out the winner of the lottery is stoned to death by the townspeople they know so well. There are many themes surrounding this story. It begins with the town boys gathering stones and picking the smoothest ones to put them in piles or their pockets. On the other hand, the little girls are standing aside gossiping or clinging to an older sibling. The author portrays a familiarly known social distinction between the two sexes, with boys being more aggressive and girls being fairly tame and vulnerable. Another theme is the naivety of children, which causes them to follow what their parents and society, want them to do, without even thinking about the consequences. This is shown mostly when Tessie Hutchinson’s name is picked, but both her children cheered because they did not “win”. They did not even care their mother was going to be die. It seems this story is a lesson. Members of society should not take part in unruly actions just because that is the social norm. People tend to follow traditions without even thinking if it is for the best. For example, in the story Mr. Adams brings up the fact that “over...
Words: 580 - Pages: 3
...Symbolism Essay “The Lottery” Especially Tessie, Warner, Bill, Graves and Summer. What They Do Synbolize? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, raises many questions in the back of a reader’s mind towards the destructive yet blind rituals of mankind. “The Lottery’ clearly expresses Jackson’s feelings concerning mankind’s evil nature hiding behind traditions and rituals. She shows how coldness and lack of passion in people can exhibit in situations regarding tradition and values. Jackson represents the theme of the short story with the use of the symbolism and setting. The story begins with a description of a seemingly cheerful environment. Jackson creates a comfortable atmosphere by describing the activities of the residents of the town. She describes children breaking into the “boisterous play and their talk still of the classroom’. Men and women are gathered in the center of the town talking about farming and taxes or into gossip. Symbolism in the story also supports the theme of” The Lottery”. The very names of the characters in the story are laden with meaning. The name of Summers, Graves, Warner, Tessie and bill hint at the true nature of the characters. Summers’ name symbolizes life but in reality it is he who is in charge of the lottery which instead of giving life to its winner it gives death. Graves is the man who carries in the black box and the three-legged stool. His name hints to what will happen to Tessie Hutchinson...
Words: 525 - Pages: 3
...friends and family. Whether it be get together on a certain day for a holiday or stoning someone to death annually, we all have them. Specifically the story titled “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, tackles the concept of traditions. The story is a dark one with a message that fairly blatant. “The Lottery” makes the readers question traditions that have been in place and if they are necessary. “The Lottery” proves to the readers that not all traditions are good traditions and should be continued. A very clear example of this comes from the end of the story when the reader finds out what the lottery actually is, “. . . they still remembered to use stones. . . A stone hit her on the side of the head” (Jackson 259). The people of the town continue this tradition of stoning one person to death every year. Jackson wants readers to understand this and to question some of their own traditions and why they still celebrate them. As previously mentioned some traditions are best left to rot and never be celebrated ever again. But what the author is saying is that if someone and their family are celebrating a tradition and have no idea why they are doing it, they should either stop said tradition or at least think on Dionne 2 it and figure out the reason for celebration. The story describes various aspects of their lottery and the people not knowing why they did it, “Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded. . . that had been used for generations” (Jackson 254). The...
Words: 647 - Pages: 3
...Lottery payment streams originate when people select an annuity payout from their lottery winnings as opposed to the lump sum. This selection is usually made when the lottery ticket is purchased. Let’s presume someone won $1 million. They elected an annuity payout over 20 years, and at interest rates available today, this is a little over $60,000 per year in 20 annual payments. The lottery commission uses the $1 million it collected from ticket sales, and invests it in zero coupon Treasuries that mature every year for the next 20 years. When the Treasuries mature, they take the proceeds from the zero coupon bond and pay it to the lottery winner. The yield on this sort of security is very low, approximately 2%. Thus, the winners discount rate, or effective rate of return, is only about 2%. They effectively delegate their $1 million prize to the Lottery Commission who invests in Treasuries. Now let’s presume the winner decided to sell the future payments for cash today. They decide sell $50,000 per year for 20 years. At a 6% discount rate, they would receive just under $600,000. You may decide to buy this payment stream at a 5% discount rate. You would pay approximately $625,000. In exchange, you would receive a total of $1M, in 20 equal annual installments of $50,000. The seller would also receive that portion of his or her payment that they decided not to sell. Just like with regular Structured Settlement Annuities, the case goes to a court with jurisdiction...
Words: 278 - Pages: 2
...“The Lottery” “The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is set in the small town of Bennington, Vermont and is a fictional dark tale about the dangers of blindly following tradition. There is symbolism in the story dealing with the objects involved, the event is held on the 27th of July every year. The black box and three legged stool along with the paper used to perform the event. Gathering of the stones and the use of the stones to complete the final part of the lottery ritual. The town square of Bennington, Vermont, between the towns Post Office and the Bank is where the town’s people would meet every June 27th for the event. Everything about the Lottery is tradition and ritual. The town children would start to gather first in the town square a little before 10 o’clock am, and then the men show up a few minutes after the children. The women of the town are the last to show up and they would begin talking with one another as they waited for Mr. Summers to arrive for the lottery to begin. “Soon the men begin to gather together, surveying their own children and speaking of planting crops, rain, tractors and taxes” (Jackson 290). “Soon the women by their husbands as they begin...
Words: 1156 - Pages: 5
...2. What is the purpose of the lottery? Does anyone in the story explain its exact purpose? Why does Jackson include several references to parts of the lottery that have been lost or forgotten? The purpose of the lottery is not known for most of the story. I read almost the entire story assuming that The Lottery is a good thing. It is revealed in the end that the person with the winning lottery ticket gets stoned to death. No one in the story explains the exact purpose of the lottery, except that it is a tradition that has been around for a long time. The only character that hints to the purpose is Old Man Warner when he says, "Pack of crazy fools, listening to young folks, northing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that 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." This makes me believe that they believe that if they do not do this, then they will regress to hard times and won’t have good crops. Jackson includes several references to parts of the ritual that have been lost or forgotten because she is trying to portray how long this ritual has been around and how important it is to the people. For example, the black box that is used today is not the same, but parts of it were from the original box. They used to use chips of wood, but now that the town...
Words: 1050 - Pages: 5
