The original black box used for the drawing during the lottery is a tradition within itself. It is the first and only box ever used for the lottery, which is why the villagers haven’t “upset even as much tradition” that is shown by the box (1). The black box is used year after year, was in no way attempted to be replaced by the villagers because they seemed to oppose the idea of changing the slightest thing of one of their customs. By practicing and protecting their tradition so strongly and disapproving any adjustment to it shows how important the villagers view the lottery. Besides the black box, the papers inside containing one black dot have their own symbolism.
Thematic Analysis – “The Lottery” Have you ever wondered why your parents made up the story of Santa when we were little? We have a bunch of traditions that we never really question or think why they are there. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that is a perfect example of people not thinking of traditions. The short story is about a community who sacrifices a member of the community, picked by a draw, in belief they will have a good harvest. The theme of “The Lottery” is society’s resistance to change.
In fact, Jones used situational irony to draw attention to the main parts of the story such as when Ned had died from winning the lottery after playing his whole life, only to die from shock shortly after. Another example would be when the man who worked for the lottery was divining back after issuing the cheque almost hit the phone booth with the woman in it, he did miss it but unfortunately in his attempts to avoid it he had caused another vehicle to swerve out of control and knock it off the mountain. What made this so important and ironic is that she was the only person in the village that had not agreed to sign saying that she will lie about Ned being alive and strangely enough… It is actually the priest who had hit her off the mountain and killed her. Evidently it is quite obvious that Kirk Jones had intentionally used irony at a good portion of the main events in the film to help build the viewer’s interest and to move the plot forward throughout the film. Similarly to Waking Ned Devine, Frank O’Conner’s The Drunkard uses one very obvious form of irony, Situational.
Everyone in town participated in the lottery from even the youngest children to the oldest people. The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles (252). It would be crazy for something like this to happen in the real world today. It would not be a good thing to have little kids being involved in a tragedy of this nature.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Text|Response| Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. 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. ...; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play.|Both of these text from the short story, give me an idea of how long this Lottery event has been taking place in this town. They both show me that this has been a tradition with rituals by the old Black Box as well as describing Old Man Warner as “the oldest man in town”.
A similarity between the writing style of Le Guin and Jackson is their use of both plot and characters to portray the themes of their story. Within Jackson’s “The Lottery” the whole village gathers together for an annual ceremony in which someone is randomly selected to be stoned to death. The theme of blindly following tradition is seen within the lines “Although the villagers has forgotten the ritual and ost the original black box, they still remembered to use stoned. (Jackson 7) The current residents of the village do not even follow the old traditional ritual of the original villagers, and many of them probably do not have the knowledge as to how it was performed, yet every single year they murder a person without knowing the reason behind it. All they know is that they get to throw fling some rocks at a random person and it seems that is all they care about.
In Jackson’s “The Lottery”, she tells a story about a close-knit community of hard-working families that gather every year for a lottery. She sets the scene to where it’s a pleasant town filled with the usual gossip and usual norms any society would have, and also giving it the innocent vibe to it. Small children playing in the square, collecting rocks and running around before their parents yell for them to come home. (24) All is well in the small little town until Mr. Summers, the owner of the coal business, comes with the ominous black box. From that point, the whole story revolves around the lottery.
La`Michael Boles English 101 Leah Halliday Little Black Box In the story “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, the people of the town believed in holding a lottery every year. They picked one name and then the winner would be killed. They held on to an old black box which they all knew they needed to get rid of, but didn’t. The black box in “The Lottery” represented old traditions, loyalty, and lack of knowledge. The black box represented old traditions in the community.
“The Lottery”: You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play, but Everyone Loses When Tradition is Blindly Followed "‘Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones,’" at this moment the horror of the townspeople’s tradition starts to become apparent (223). The methodical and slowly unfolding process leading up to the murder of Tessie Hutchinson, a citizen of the small, unnamed rural town described in the short story, “The Lottery” provides very little hint of the truly awful nature of this villagers’ long held custom. The author, Shirley Jackson describes how the seemingly normal people of this town proceed to kill one of their own in the name of tradition, with nearly no question of why or what for. Jackson reveals the nature of humans to cling to tradition, even if it leads to awful ends, whether it occurs as a result of habit or laziness. As the antagonist of this story, the villagers’ show the danger of following tradition with questioning their origin or purpose.
The Analysis of the Lottery The short story “The Lottery” narrated a story about the people of a small town held an activity of lottery and the person who got the lottery would be hit to death by stones for the sake of harvest of the following year. Read through the whole story, we can know that the lottery completely show the blind obedience, less of rationality and cruel coldness of human nature of the whole town people. In the beginning of the story, the author described a quiet and peaceful, common and beautiful scene of the small town. For example, the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. These descriptions of the surrounding environment gave readers a kind of quiet and peaceful feeling so that it made readers think there would not happen anything bad.