However, a person is about to get chosen to get stoned to death. Moreover, the term, lottery, is usually defined as getting chosen in a positive event, ironically, the lottery in the story is seen as a misfortune pick of death. The story also delivers irony through the character, Old Man Warren, while he criticizes the people who quit lotteries “pack of young fools”. Jackson also wrote, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (pg.80) in order to deliver an ironic tone through her role of a narrator. The story also contains several examples of symbolisms.
For example in "The Ones Who Walk Away from to Omeleas" the society is forced to visit the child to witness the horrendous conditions it lives in. The author explains the child's presence enables them to continue their lives as it current is, "It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science." (Le Guin, 150). Similarly we can see the same principle happening in "The Lottery", the whole community participates in stoning the individual who has a black mark on the slip of paper. Both communities willingly acknowledge the notion of scarifying an innocent
Young Goodman Brown encountered quite a few interesting moments. There was Ms. Goody Cloyse, his former catechism teacher, who knew this stranger and called this old friend “the Devil”. Later after the stranger grew tired of the journey taking so long, he left him behind. He heard horses and familiar voices so he hid. The voices were the Minister and DeaconGookin.
Danielle L Allen Professor Shandor English 1101 Textual Analysis of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson The theme of the short story, “The Lottery,” involves a society’s tendency to blindly and randomly persecute others without reason. The village lottery culminates in an annual violent murder; a ritual, which suggests how dangerous tradition can be when followed blindly. Jackson, the author, focuses on the individuals reverence for tradition, writing that the villagers do not really know much about the lottery’s origin, but continue to make every effort to preserve the tradition nevertheless. Leading the reader to understand that a lack of knowledge and understanding, in addition to reverence toward tradition, compel the villagers to continue only what they know, the lottery. Specifically, Jackson writes that the villagers recall there was, at one time, “a recital of some sort,” and that “some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse.” (25) These once important procedures were now no more than talk among the villagers, of how the lottery “was originally conducted.” The specific details, lost throughout time, did not prevent the “tradition” from occurring year after year.
The author choses this strategy to conceal the fear and tension the characters experience inside. For the majority of the story, the objective narrator makes the reader believe that the lottery is just a usual one where all the villagers are excited to win it. But near the end of the story, when the winning family is announced the reader can feel through their reaction the fear and tension and realize that something is wrong with this lottery: “Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand” (392). The reader manages to realize the tragedy through actual facts and reactions and not with the help of an omniscient narrator that reveals him the character’s thoughts. This discovery has a huge impact on the reader.
By way of her appearance, she has definitely made herself obvious to the reader at this point; she’s pretty much made herself stick out like a sore thumb amongst the townspeople and to the reader. Then we pan to the actual drawing where followed by several other townsfolk have picked their tickets, Mrs. Hutchinson encourages her husband to go up and draw his ticket as if it were some game show; this is definitely not “The price is right!” where the participants come running up stage, excited and exuberantly, to test their luck, no. It’s much worse than that, and Tessie treats the lottery as if it’s the lottery the way
Jackson even darkens the tone by describing the villagers are actually anxious and awaiting the result of the lottery “nervously” and “hastily”. It hints that they fear the tradition but they dare not speak openly of the disgust and hatred they feel. The writer deliberately strikes up the powerful contrast to emphasize even all the followers of the lottery fears the traditions, no one dares to change or abolish it; they follow this old practice senselessly and blindly just because “there have always been a lottery”. b. Description and foreshadowing Detailed and meticulous details are found in the exposition of the story; the ridiculousness and the ruthlessness of the lottery are stressed by the ironic names of Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, as well as thoughtful, fine details given by the author.
In this short story, tradition blindly pushes villagers to extremes and takes over their morality. The community is blinded by tradition, without realizing how it affects their morals. Mr. Summers, the oldest man in the village who is responsible for the lottery, appeals to people’s fear of ending the tradition. He tries to maintain it. The old man claims that there has always been a lottery and by giving up the lottery the villagers will get in trouble.
Shirley Jackson wrote this story to shock her audience. She wanted to show a tradition that is highly corrupted taking place in a small and what seems to be, a normal town. The word, “tradition” means inherited or established customs or actions, In the story, some townsmen are talking about other towns getting rid of their lottery. The Old Man Warner says, “Nothing but trouble in that, pack of young fools.”(Jackson) He is referring to the other villages that have abolished this tradition. He also states that it is the seventy-seventh time he has attended the lottery, as if to say it has been around for a long time and will continue to be around.
This is the first event that makes the reader question the action of the townspeople. Stones are not something that is used in your typical everyday lottery. When the town’s people gather for the lottery everyone is required to draw a slip of paper from the black box. The family that chooses the “winning” slip of paper has to put their papers back into the black box and choose again. The family member that has chosen the slip of paper with the black dot on it has won the lottery, but the only thing that he or she has won is a cruel and unusual death by stoning.