Imagine being forced out of your own home, and put into harsh and dirty prison camps. Having only 3 grams of bread a day and working from sunrise to sunset. With very little communication, and disease and death all around, these camps were almost a death trap. Hundreds died and everyone suffered. Between Shades of Gray is about WWII and the life of a teenage girl living in these circumstances. Lina Vilkas, a strong, blue eyed, 16 year old girl, has to persevere and stay positive in order to withstand these conditions. Between Shades of Gray is a fictional book written by Ruta Sepetys. The Lottery, a short story written by Shirley Jackson, relates to this book in many ways. It is about a small town, where a lottery is held every year and the …show more content…
The NKVD soldiers are very disrespectful and have no regard for human life. They treat the Lithuanians with no respect and express cruelty towards them, in a very casual way. One example of this is when Ona is shot by an NKVD officer. Lina says, "Ona stood up and stomped her right foot. The commander stepped up and pulled Ona from the truck...The commander pulled out a pistol and shot Ona in the head." (101) This is an example of cruelty. Ona is grieving about her dead baby, and is punished for her actions, and in result, she is killed. There are many other examples of cruelty in Between Shades of Gray. Later, an NKVD officer laughs at a group people that froze to death during the snowstorm. Lina says, "He was laughing. Those people died and Ivanov was laughing." (288) Another example of the NKVD's cruelty, is the way they treat Mrs. Arvydas, Andruis's mother. Lina asks Andrius why he is staying in the NKVD building. He then tells Lina, "They threatened to kill me unless she slept with them." This shows that the NKVD has no regard for the Lithuanians. This also exaggerates the casualness of the NKVD's actions, and the cruelty of Joseph Stalin and his secret army, the NKVD. This relates to the townsfolk in The Lottery. The Lottery is about a lottery where the winner had to face death. The Lottery is very cruel thing and relates to Between Shades of Gray in many ways. An example of this is when Tessy is having stones thrown at …show more content…
In The Lottery, the older generation represents the majority. They support the lottery and agree with the tradition that has been passed down for many years. The younger generation, represents the minority, and they want to abolish the lottery. They feel that it is cruel and unnecessary in their town. An example from the younger generations point of view is when Mr. Adams shares his thoughts about the lottery. He heard that in other towns they have been discussing about ending the lottery. He says, "They do say...that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery." Mr. Adams, a young man, is curious about the thought of ending the lottery, and how it would affect their lives in the future. This upsets Old Man Warner, he says, "Nothing but trouble in that." No matter how many times Mr. Adams tries to talk about abolishing the lottery, he is immediately shut down by Old Man Warner. This shows how the younger generation is the minority, and how they believe the lottery is a very cruel thing. This relates to the NKVD soldiers and their feelings toward their job. One officer that enjoys his work is Officer Komorov. Komorov is very disrespectful to Lina and other women. The Lithuanians are asked to sign papers, sentencing themselves to 25 years of prison. None of them decided to sign the document. This made the officers
Imagine that you, out of entire village, won the lottery. You would think that it is a good thing, right? Now imagine that winning the lottery meant you are going to lose your life. Your view on the lottery probably switched from good to bad. The same thing goes for people.
Written in 1948, ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson is a controversial short story heavily influenced by the events that occurred during that time in history. Jackson effectively captures the dark nature of the human spirit in her dystopian piece, ‘The Lottery’; there are significant parallels between the short story and the sociological, economic and political climate at the time due to the Holocaust and the red scare in the United States. During these difficult times in history, individuals were persecuted for their beliefs, and often it was people that they believed were close to them that allowed for these unspeakable acts to occur. The lengths that members of society are able to go to in order to protect their own interests is deplorable, and Jackson has illustrated this theme in a more apparent manner.
The Lottery is a short story about a town of people that will crowd and all the men will get a slip of paper all the paper is blank… besides one and that one has a black dot, so a lucky person will get it and if they have a kid older than 16 they have play this game, anyway the winner will get a “prize”. The Lottery story and The Lottery movie have many things that were different. The Lottery story is different from The Lottery movie by where it is located and where the event took place, such as in the story they were sacrificing someone in a large field while in the movie they were stopped by the building. If they didn’t have the building in the way she could have lived longer while if they did she would have died sooner.
The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who
“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize.
Annotated Bibliography 1. Jackson The Lottery By: Yarmove, Jay A. Explicator. Summer94, Vol. 52 Issue 4, p242. 4p.
Ruta Sepetys wrote a New Yorks best seller novel called ¨Between Shades of Gray¨. In this historical fiction novel a family is taken from their homes during the Holocaust and has to endure many challenges. One of the main characters is a 16 year old girl named Lina whoś bravery, hope, and faith can be seen throughout the novel. In the novel ¨Between Shades of Gray¨ Sepetys creates two main theme, that hope can be found where there is despair and where there is fear there is faith. One theme that can be seen throughout the novel “Between Shades of Gray¨ is that hope can be found where there is despair.
3/8/2017 The lottery essay Anan Istetieh Anticipation mingled with uncertainty, better known, as suspense, is an inevitable quality of human nature. Suspense is occasionally a great mechanism. It allows the author to keep the readers alert and leads up to the element of surprise, which is a successful writing tool that makes a story more enjoyable. The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson builds up suspense through the foreshadowing of a horrible moment, creating a character that stands out from the crowd all while withholding the true nature of the story. The author of “The Lottery” foreshadowed the horrible climax of the story by explaining how the children were recently released from school for the summer, but they felt discomfort, “and
The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story of horror and realism. On June 27th on a late summer morning, the villagers of a small New England village gatherd together in the town square to conduct their annual lottery. There is a black box on a stool and in the box there is pieces of paper in the box. Each person from a family get one paper from the black box even the children get a piece of paper and every stayed quiet and nervouse. Then Bill Hutchinson looked at the paper and notice that he got the black dot.
The tradition of the lottery has been carried out for so long in this village that nobody even knows the reason for its occurring in the first place and nobody questions it. When Old Man Warner, the oldest man in the village, is told about other villages giving up the tradition of the lottery, he says that they are, “[A] pack of crazy fools [...]. There [has] always been a lottery [...]” (Jackson, 4). There is no reason why there has always been a lottery except that every year on June 27th, they held the lottery.
Usually there’s a winner in a lottery, but not in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. This story intrigued me by it's suspenseful nature and it's chaotic events. In small town America, they come together once a year to perform an annual tradition. Mrs. Jackson demonstrates literary devices such as foreshadowing, mood, and conflict in “The Lottery”. Foreshadowing is used quite a few times in “The Lottery”.
“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is atypical of any other story from its time. Jackson utilizes a shift in tone that is emphasized through the event’s location, attendees, and rituals found within her work to take readers on a wild ride. What begins as an average day on June 27, unfolds into a situation that never could have been expected. Jackson’s use of tone in “The Lottery” functions as a way to distract readers from the overall mood of the gathering. The pleasant and easy-going tone, presented throughout the beginning of Jacksons’s work aims to deter readers from questioning the villager’s initial motives.
The fictional stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K LeGuin are about one person sacrificing their life for the sake of others. “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” both reflect punishment in a conflicting way, through their setting, society, and morals. First of all, in“The Lottery” it consist of a small farming community where they work together in a warm and joyful setting. The author, Shirley Jackson gives the example by saying, “was clear and sunny, with fresh warmth of a full-summer day”(Jackson,1). This story provides a sense of a smaller, closer community, that has poverty issues which the town has a way of resolving.
Adam’s and Old Man Warner’s discussion about the idea of giving up the lottery. Old Man Warner states that “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 142). The inference of Old Man Warner’s words and tone suggests that there will always be a lottery, and that it should always remain, that it is wrong to question its existence. Given the violent nature of the lottery’s results and its enduring tradition throughout generations of participants, each succeeding generation obviously grows accustom to the violence and brutality it calls for. The children, for example, readily prepare for the occasion by amassing “a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and [guarding] it” (Jackson 139).
The villagers are reluctant to give up their beliefs because they think that they might lose their distinction that separates them from others. Old Man Warner strongly disapproves of people who want to quit the lottery. He says, “There’s always been a lottery”3 so for him, these people are “crazy.”4 However, for the readers, his reluctance means that he is afraid to change his place within the society. He has gained the title of Old Man not only because he is the oldest man in the village but he has also been in the lottery for 77 years.