Situational irony exists in a story when a discrepancy occurs in what the character or characters think will happen and what actually happens. Situational irony occurs in “The Lottery” in the imagery depicted in the opening paragraphs, the characters and their dialogue with each other and the introduction of Mrs. Hutchinson as she arrives late. The most ironic point of the story is the attitude of the villagers, which will be addressed in each of the examples above. In the opening sentence you find a description of the day. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full sunny day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” With this description you don’t anticipate the dark events of the end of the story.
Jackson’s lottery is a source of fear and a lack of emotions hidden under the beautiful appearances. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson reveals an objective narrator, choses the heavenly beauty and serenity of a summer day as the setting and defines the characters as a united and friendly community to create a happy environment that strongly contrasts the tragic ending and shocks the reader. The objective narrator disguises any inside thoughts or fears of the characters behind their apparent joy and excitement and therefore effectively camouflages the shocking ending. An objective narrator cannot go inside the character’s mind and therefore reveals only what he sees. The author choses this strategy to conceal the fear and tension the characters experience inside.
“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” (The Lottery, 247) Jackson begins the story describing the scenery before the lottery. The way she describes it leads the reader to believe this day is a happy day that the town folk look forward to annually. Jackson foreshadows the ending of the story in the beginning when she talks about the children collecting the smoothest and roundest stones and putting them in piles. Little do we know the stones are the “weapons” used to destroy the unlucky winner of the lottery. Ordinary folks in the society consider the lottery an ordinary ritual or tradition.
Sammy passes judgment on the customers for being dull and unaware: “The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle…I bet you could set off dynamite in an A&P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists…” (457). Sammy clearly does not view himself as one of these “sheep.” He does not want to do the same things as everyone else in his small town, to follow the rules just because everyone else does. Perhaps he has not yet decided that he will do something to get out of his circumstances, but it is clear that he has already become very unhappy with them. Sammy’s attitude toward his boss is less harsh than his attitude toward the customers, but it still is not respectful. In reference to his boss, Sammy says, “pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn’t miss that much” (458).
In the novel apart from George, no one else really cares for Lennie. He shows us how the characters feel and act towards Lennie as a character. Lennie, along with Curley’s wife, candy and crooks are considered to be the weaker characters in the novel and when they meet in chapter four in the stable house all the other weak characters reject lennie for his child like nature and his simplemindedness. Lennie tries to do his role in helping him and George fulfill their American dream but no matter how hard he tries, he only causes disasters. It also relates to that time in America, when everyone wants to have their “American Dream” but it’s actually really
He changes when he learns about Mrs. Dubois and her bad addiction to morphine. One can directed to believe that Jem would be more inclined to read to her to help her to stay clean. He loses his innocence when Mrs. Duboise dies and he never gets to really apologize for his actions. After this loss of innocence, he has another realization that life is unfair and it is not fun and games because of the verdict in the Tom Robinson case. He also realizes the mere fact of why Boo Radley never liked coming out the house which shows his intellectual maturity of realizing that the world is not that great.
The village members all chatter amongst one another in a tone that kind neighbors would take with one another. To the surprise of the reader, the story provides a shocking twist. The story is not about someone winning a prize. Instead the story reveals that the lottery is a barbaric and inhumane practice in which the person who is drawn is subsequently stoned to death by the member of the community. Upon first reading the story, I sat there shocked staring at the book, not fathoming what I had read.
Character Analysis of Homer Barron of “ A Rose for Emily” Homer Barron is a major antagonist of the story, however, Emily Grierson is considered to be the story’s main focus. After completely reading the story, William Faulkner made it perfectly clear that Homer is not a compassionate person. Even though, Homer “pretty soon knew everybody in town”, the townspeople didn’t consider him to be the type of man, Emily would marry. It is unknown whether or not, Homer is a homosexual. This becomes a huge factor being analyzed because of the confusing line in the story: “Then we said, “She will persuade him yet, “because Homer himself had remarked- he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club- that he was not a marrying man.” (Faulkner 4) This portion of the story is hard to unravel.
Why would the witnesses knowingly stand by and not do anything to help when they knew that the outcome of the events could be tragic? In “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t call the Police,” several witnesses were asked why they hadn’t called for help they replied by saying “I didn’t want to get involved” (Gansberg 122) A husband and wife both said “Frankly, we were afraid” (122). Although in the sort story “Samuel,” some of the men and other passengers thought, “These kids do seem to be acting stupid” (Paley 259). But then they thought of the things they did as kids and didn’t seem to think it was risky (259). In both stories the witnesses were either too scared or didn’t think it was a big deal to get involved.
The sexton says, “I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of crape” (873). Another old woman replied, “I don’t like it” (873). “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face” (873). This already suggests that the people are acting negatively towards this mere piece of crape simply because it is hiding Hooper’s face. The story goes on to talk about how Hooper’s congregation keeps talking about his masked face, but never go to ask him directly.