“The Lottery” In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, there are several characters throughout this short story that participate in an annual ritual within their town known as the story’s title: “The Lottery”. Despite the fact that there are a distinct handful of characters in the drawing of the symbolic Black Box, only one of them wins the lottery; and that is none other than Tessie Hutchinson. Mrs. Hutchinson is a mother of three and the wife of Mr. Hutchinson, Bill. What makes Mrs. Hutchinson a strikingly interesting character to me is that she’s written a certain way to purposely give the reader an intentional perspective of her. With that being said, I want to dig deeper into Tessie Hutchinson’s character analysis and study her symbolic nature in order to understand why Shirley Jackson wrote Mrs. Hutchinson the way she did.
The author describes a quiet friendly and loving little town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. As the story goes on the town is assembling in the middle of the town for what they refer to as the lottery. This event happens every year and we soon find out, from the reactions of the the winner of the “lottery”, that it is not something someone wants to win. The village gathers, viciously making jokes and chatting. The Hutchinson family was the unfortunate winners of the first round and then they had to pick among themselves.
Jackson brings these practices to light and exposes them for what they really are. “The Lottery” is about a small town in which a lottery is held on every June 27th. It is a tradition that has been taking place for a many decades. The lottery is not the type of lottery held today, however, it is a lottery to ultimately sacrifice someone’s life. Shirley Jackson wrote this story to shock her audience.
Niekoop Loraine Professor Jean English 1102 16 March 2015 A Horrific Depiction of Human Life in Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery" In today’s society when he or she hears the words “The Lottery,” winning a prize automatically comes to mind. However, Shirley Jackson, who dramatically characterizes her short story “The Lottery,” depicts a horrifying and sinister act of humanity. The point of the story is to have people think about what kinds of traditions they have in their everyday lives, that limit their actions and have consequences that they might not choose for themselves. Therefore, Jackson implies that her story speaks about deeply rooted cultural traditions as well as time coming to a screeching halt. “The Lottery,” exposes deep truths about cultural traditions.
She does, however have flaws, she is not very intelligent, and she sacrifices her love in favor of life twice; when Prince Humperdinck proposes, with the alternative being death, marriage, and when he threatens Buttercup’s and Westley’s lives again outside the Fire Swamp. In the film, Buttercup is played by Robin Wright, who fits the physical description, with long blonde hair and pale skin. Her personality is good natured but simple, her only passion Westley. The only time
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.
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.
Shelly Kasper Jodi Stapleton English 1102 The lottery symbolism “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story about how every citizen in a small town is forced to take part in the annual lottery. What the reader soon finds out is that this is not the type of lottery that one would want to win, and the only reason why the town holds this type of lottery every year is because of tradition. A cheerful tone seems to be set from the very beginning when Jackson describes a warm sunny summer’s day; school is just getting out and everyone appears content. Next she describes the children and adults gathering stones for the lottery. This is the first event that makes the reader question the action of the townspeople.
The Day Tessie Hutchinson’s Luck Ran Out They say some people have all the luck. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Tessie Hutchinson’s luck ran out on June 27th. She chose the marked paper out of the wooden box, which in this short story meant that she would be the one getting stoned. It was a warm, sunny summer day. Everyone from the village, about 300 people, were gathered around the square for the lottery drawing.
The stories plot opens (exposition) as a peaceful scene in a small village on a clear and sunny morning on June 27th. The townspeople of the small village began to gather in the towns square. It does seem that we are going to embark on a happy story, when you think “The Lottery” you feel as though someone is about to win a big prize. Even though there were subliminal messages from the time the story begins, the boys putting stones into their pockets and making piles in the corner of the square while the adults talk in groups. Shows us that everything may not be as pleasant as we are expecting.