The small village of people gathers at 10 a.m. on June 27 in the square between the post office and the bank for the annual lottery. A bright sun is shining down on fragrant flowers and green lawns while all the villagers await the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black wooden box from which everyone is to draw a folded slip of paper. The older people chat while children play a game in which they gather stones. Whoever draws the slip of paper with the black dot on it will be the winner so to say of the lottery.
…….Over the years, the lottery rules and trappings stayed the same except for some small changes: the wood chips were replaced by the slips of paper, and ritual chants and salutes preceding the drawing were eliminated. No one in the square knows why or how the lottery began. All they know is that it is a tradition and not one that they are not willing to abandon. After Mr. Summers shows up with the black box, he sets it down and prepares for the drawing. A housewife, Tessie Hutchinson, arrives late, telling Mrs. Delacroix that she “Clean forgot what day it was” until she noticed that her children had left her house and remembered it was the day of the lottery.
…….Each of the townspeople draws a folded slip of paper but does not open it until everyone has drawn. When the big moment arrives, it is Tessie Hutchinson who has the paper with the black dot. Everyone then closes in on her, picks up rocks-the “proceeds” of the lottery and stones her to death.
The Term Paper on Lottery By Shirley Jackson
Lottery by Shirley Jackson Shirley Jackson is a famous American writer. She was a master of short stories and novels. All her works are considered to rather strange, odd and deathly. They are filled with sense of doom, despair with inevitable horrific ending. But her novels and stories are framed by ordinary characters and surrounding. (Friedman 1975) It is known that practically all of her ...
The short story, “The Lottery” has 11 basic main characters. The Adam’s are both people that like to question the ritual of the lottery. Mrs. Delacroix was the first person Tessie talked to when she arrived late to the lottery. Mrs. Janey Dunbar had to draw the slip of paper for her husband because he was at home with a broken leg. Mr. and Mrs. Graves are two of the most powerful and accepting villagers about the lottery. Bill Hutchinson is an accepting person when it comes to the lottery. He is almost enjoying it, he tells his wife to “shut up” when she questions the ritual of the lottery. Tessie Hutchinson, the most important roll in the story, was the person that happened to win the lottery and get stoned to death. Mr. Martin was the grocer that was in charge of holding the box with the slips of paper in it. Joe Summer’s was the most powerful and the wealthiest of all the villagers. Finally, Old Man Warner, he has been through 77 lotteries and still doesn’t complain about being in the contest.
“The Lottery” has many themes and symbols. One of the main themes to this story is tradition. In example to the theme, Old Man Warner is a symbol of tradition. Throughout the story, he talks about the dwindling traditional values of the new generation. This for example, “Pack of crazy fools…Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them,” this shows that he thinks the lottery is a good idea simply because it is tradition. He lasted through seventy-seven lotteries in which tradition was upheld with supposed display and circumstance. He could not understand the younger generation’s lack of traditionalism. This brings up the next theme, which is people hate change because human nature is constant. “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,” this quote clearly shows the villagers’ dislike for change. Even though “the black box grew shabbier each year…,” the people resolutely held to custom. This also shows that though the lottery may be an evil act, it is upheld by tradition and the peoples’ unwillingness to any difference in their customary lives.
The Essay on The Lottery And Harrison Bergeron
People have been participating in governing their countries either directly or indirectly since a sort of politics came into being. A small number of people can monopolize authority and abuse it for the sake of their own benefits unless masses of people take part in governing their countries. Therefore, their participation plays very crucial roles in their societies. By not taking their political ...
Relating to this accustomed lifestyle, there is also a sexist theme to this story. Women in this story hold no economic position. They have no other occupation except that of housewife. This statement is reaffirmed in the procedures of the lottery. During the lottery, only the oldest working males in the family are allowed to draw for the family. When Mr. Dunbar has a broken leg, his wife must choose for him, however Mr. Summers says, and “Don’t you have a grown boy showing that a woman drawing in the lottery would be quite unusual.” In the end, Tessie Hutchinson, a woman, draws the black spot and is doomed to her death. Along these lines, the black spot along with the black box are both symbols of death. The color black lends itself to the character of ending in the story. An obvious contention that the black spot symbolizes death is that the “winner” of the lottery is the person that draws the black spot. Sacrifice and compliance are also part of the theme. The lottery is a sacrifice of human life to the belief that in doing so, they would be better off for it. There is no rationality to their notion of human sacrifice. The only reason that is given in the story for this immolation is stated by Old Man Warner, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’” His statement implies that the lottery is a sacrifice for a bountiful harvest. The theme of compliance is extremely predominant in “The Lottery.”
The villagers comply with the annual lottery with no questions asked. They do not question the finality or the morality of the lottery. Compliance is also shown when Tessie Hutchinson, the mother, is stoned to death by her own children. Compliance also relates to the fact that the villagers think of the lottery as a “civic activity.” They are just doing their duty as citizens of the town.
The short story “The Lottery” was very confusing to me at first. I have learned to reread all the stories that I read and don’t understand for the first time. After I read the story 2 or 3 times I began to realize that I was not paying attention to the main facts in the story, but I was taking a better look to the less important ideas in the story. For example when I first got this story and I read the title I thought it was going to be about an actual lottery, like maybe someone won a big prize like 100 million dollars or something and the family was trying to take the money from them. Instead the lottery ended up being that the person that got the slip of paper with the cold black color on it was the one that one the lottery and the prize was that you get to be stoned to death. Sounds fun, not exactly. Especially when all the members of the village are beating on you with big stones and trying to kill you.
The Essay on Effects of the Black Death
Imagine one half of the world’s population by wiped out in a space of less than a ten years. You probably cannot imagine such an event occurring; it seems unreal. Yet, this very thing happened in the between the years 1347 and 1351 in Europe. This massive destruction of human life was known as the Black Death. This Black Death was an ecological disaster on a global scale. The effects of the ...
