The Lottery Literary Analysis

The Lottery In Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story, “The Lottery,” she uses symbols to depict the theme of the story. In literature a symbol is a person, place, or thing that suggests more than its literal meaning. The theme of this story is the danger of blindly following a tradition. “Because there has always been a lottery, the villagers feel compelled to continue the horrifying tradition,” even though they are clueless to the true meaning (Griffin). From the setting to the characters themselves to the black box and the stones, Jackson reveals symbolism as a key component of her famous short story. The morning of June 27th every year, the unknown town gathers in the square to begin that year’s lottery (Jackson 247). At the beginning…show more content…
“Mr. Summers, a jovial man who conducts the lottery ceremony, sets the tone of the event with both his name and his mannerisms” (Griffin). On the other hand his assistant, Mr. Graves’ “[hints] at a dark undertone” and his name is also a forewarning note of what will happen to the “winner” of the lottery (Griffin). Mrs. Delacroix- or “Dellacroy” as the villagers would call her- also plays a significant role. “In French, ‘Delacroix’ means ‘of the cross,” and the mispronunciation shows the villagers spoiling the traditional Christian understanding of the Crucifixion (Cervo). Old Man Warner is the oldest man in town because all the others have either died or been killed off, and he seems to play the typical grouchy old man (Hardy). Last, but definitely not least, it is Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson’s name, that “magnifies the allegorical force of the story” (Hardy). In 1638, Anne Hutchinson was exiled from Massachusetts Bay Colony because of her religious beliefs (Hardy). In Thomas Hardy’s, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the protagonist, Tess, is the “plaything of fate” and she dies deservingly (Hardy). By putting the personalities and characteristics of these two people together, Tessie Hutchinson’s character as a whole seems to be the perfect ending…show more content…
“Every year, after the lottery Mr. Summers began talking about a new box,” but nothing was ever done because the town based their attachment on nothing more than a story that claims that this black box was made from pieces of another, older black box. The town had already replaced the chips of wood with slips of paper and abandoned the ritual chants and salutes before the lottery though. While “the villagers had forgotten the true meaning of the ritual, they still remembered to use stones” (Coulthard). The villagers focused on “it’s gruesome rather than symbolic nature” (Griffin). They were “willing to risk their own lives for the sheer pleasure of an unpunished annual killing” (Coulthard).

Works Cited
Cervo, Nathan. "Jackson's The Lottery." Explicator 50.3 (1992): 183. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.
Coulthard, A.R. “Jackson’s THE LOTTERY.” Explicator 48.3 (1990): 226. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.
Griffin, Amy A. “Jackson’s THE LOTTERY.” The Explicator 58.1 (1999): 44. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 13 Feb. 2012.
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1960. Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” The Lottery. New York: Popular Library, 1949.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy