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Imagery In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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In the story “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, it tells of a story in which a town murders one person a year in order for them to have a good harvest. Some townies don’t all believe in doing the act but they continue doing it because they truly believe in continuing tradition. In the story Shirley Jackson manages to convey her ideas through the story in many ways. One way being through symbolism, this is because by including the stones, the black box, and the slips of paper it would portray the town's dedication to tradition. The stones represent the violence humans create, the black box represents the town not wanting to change tradition since they said that “ the black box grew shabbier each year”, and the slips of paper represents the …show more content…

By doing so she makes it seem as if the town is as regular as any old town that wouldn’t hurt anyone. She continues to using imagery when describing the setting by saying the day of the lottery was “clear and sunny” and with the “ fresh warmth of a full summer day, the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green”. The black box is used to show imagery when saying “ 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”. She also uses it when it is time for Tessie Hutchinson to get executed since she included this sentence “ Mrs.Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands”. The author also conveys her ideas through a character who stands for an idea. She shows this through Tessie Hutchinson, who originally supported the the Lottery until fate made her husband choose the paper slip that would change her family's life forever. Jackson included this sentence to show how Mrs Hutchinson was feeling about the lottery initially, “ clean forgot what day it was, she said to Mrs Delacroix, who stood next to her, and softly laughed”. The author showed how Tessie initially was even happy and didn’t care about being late since she never once thought her family would get

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