“The Lottery” Interpretive Essay “The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts of with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers, the official, holds the lottery. After that, every family draws out of an old black box, and a certain family gets picked. Out of the certain family, one person gets picked as the unlucky “winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery. Her prize is that she is stoned to death.This lottery happens because the town doesn’t want to upset the tradition. The text states, “ ‘Well, now,’ Mr. Summers said soberly, ‘guess we better get started, get this over with so’s we can go back to work. (p. 19, lines 169-171).’ ” Mr. Summers is stated as a “round-faced, jovial man” on page 15, lines 52-53. It seems that he doesn’t enjoy the lottery because he is described as sober. tPage 16, lines 78-82, proves just how long the lottery has …show more content…
Summers declared the lottery open. There were lists to make up- of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family.” If there really is so much fussing to be done for the lottery to be declared open in the first place, a logical reason is that it is a tradition. To further the point, the text says, “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box (p. 16, lines 74-77).” This goes back to the point that the town doesn’t want to upset the tradition because they don’t even want to get rid of the black box. The author even hints that it is a tradition, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones (p. 28, lines
“The Lottery” is about a town that kills people off as part of a fertility ritual by a lottery system. The conflict is hard to pinpoint since the main character, Tessie Hutchinson shows up late to the lottery in the middle of the story. Tessie can be seen as a representative of the whole town. Tessie speaks her mind and voices thoughts that others have. For example, when she screams “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right” before she is killed (245).Other people have also voiced their opinions about the lottery.
Stories have always been something that we, as humans, enjoy to hear and read. This is shown throughout history and continues to remain true today. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” she takes her readers through a whirlwind of a story, starting it out one way and ending it with something unexpected. She does a great job of writing, by implementing in foreshadowing, imagery, and the theme of tradition. When someone thinks of a lottery, it usually means that someone is going to win something, such as money.
In this quote “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (Shirly 7). The town is preparing to kill Mrs. Hutchinson because she won the lottery. It states in the book that the lottery had been going on for a while. Which means they must have done the ritual for every time they did it. Mrs. Hutchinson said, “It isn't fair, it isn't right” (Shirly 7).
“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.
The main conflict in The Lottery is between Tessie Hutchinson and the rest of the town. According to Shirley Jackson, “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villages moved in on her.” “It isn’t fair,” she said. The rest of the town people disagree with her and says everyone took the same chance. One of Shirley Jackson’s conflicts is between the character’s dark actions and the picture-perfect setting.
The Symbolism of The Lottery One big symbol that the short story is discreet about is the black box that is repeated throughout the short story symbolizes fear to adults which could affect even the most innocent. The black box appears to be the only paraphernalia that is still being used in the tradition of having a lottery. Mr. Summers is the one who is running the lottery at the time. Mr. Summers is seen as a nice man, however, when he is introduced, he is seen with the black box. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that uses the black box as a symbol to convey an underlying message that when the power of a tradition is given to a person, it could lead a crumbling society.
The Lottery Template Topic Sentence: One can see by examining the symbolism of the worn out black box, and the foreshadowing of the children putting rocks in their pockets in the The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, that this story is a classic archetypal horror story. Argument: Firstly, one can see that when Mr. Summers arrived at the square carrying a black wooden box, he asked the villagers if anyone would give him a hand with putting the box on the three- legged stool, however, many hesitated to come near the black box, a symbolic twist that foreshadows the imminent ending. The black box has been used for generations, even before the oldest villager. It has been said that the current box was made from the pieces of the
Literary Elements used in The Lottery By definition the word lottery means a process or thing whose success or outcome is measured by chance (“lottery”). To most people winning the lottery would conjure up excitement and overall good feelings. However, in the short story The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson, the lottery has a twisted and horrific meaning.
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.
However, they both felt they where right in the stands they took , which changed the way they viewed the world. In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, their was a village that had a tradition of killing the person who won The Lottery. Tessie Hutchinson was how ever the person who won and that means she would be stoned to death by the people in her village. In the text “A stone hit her on the head”.
“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts off with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers holds the lottery. Once everyone gathers, every family draws a slip of paper out of an old black box, and the family with the black mark on their paper gets picked. After that, each family member older than 3 years of age re-draws a slip of paper again and this time, the person with the black mark on their paper gets picked as the “lucky winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery, with her reward is being stoned to death.
The purpose of the lottery is to continue the old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order for a harvest. The scapegoat is chosen at random and then stoned to death by his/her companions. Although “The Lottery” reflects an event from the past, Jackson shows that many of the actions of the town resemble the tribulations that ensue in today’s society. To begin with, like the villagers in the story, our society also partakes in valuing tradition.
The short story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, the plot in the story that it only gives people an account of drawing lots to determine the winner who shall be stoned to death for harvest. However, we get a deep impression of the characters and their fate after reading the story. Jackson indicated a prevalent theme, the indirect of characterization and using symbolism and irony to modify this horror story. The Allegorical story of “ The Lottery” is often regarded as a satire of human behavior and social institutions, and exemplifies some of the central themes of Jackson’s fiction, including the victimization of the individual by society, the tendency of people to be cruel, and the presence of evil in everyday life.
Ritual like the lottery can be held year after year, because sometime people are to ignorant to change their ways. However even if people know better, sometimes they still choose continuating their rituals because it’s always been done this way, so they will keep do it this way. However, people sometimes just enjoy ritual like there and just don’t want anything to change. Sometimes people choose not to speak up against act such as in ''The Lottery'' By Shirley Jackson because they are afraid of being single-out, and targeted, also its easier just to look the other way.
“Mr. Summers hints at other negative consequences of the lottery when he says,” ‘guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work,’ The lottery ritual contributes nothing to the village, it only serves as a distraction from everyday village life”(Schneiderman 881). Mr. Summers apparently is one of the villagers that realize the negative consequences of the lottery and it should be stopped. “As I mention before, the detrimental effects of a tradition are easier to see when we are not part of that tradition ourselves. Thus, it is easy for us to condemn the lottery and its ritualistic murder of innocent victims” (Crawford 879). “The Lottery” is a perfect illustration of society values and how people feel as though they should always get what they want no matter who suffers in the