Examples Of Suspense In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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A lottery has always been a good thing that brought excitement and belief into peoples lives, except for this twist on things. The short story “The Lottery” written in short story by Shirley Jackson is about a small town where all the villagers gather on a beautiful summer day for their annual lottery. The children get there first, and they begin to collect stones until their parents call for them. Everyone arrives, except for Tessie Hutchinson who strolls in afterwards. people seem to be anxious and excited, except for a few people who seem to be not at ease like others. Once Mr. Summers sees that everyone has arrived he begins calling the names of the men from each family in alphabetical order up to pick a slip of paper from the black box, …show more content…
Suspense is built up because Shirley Jackson holds back a lot of the explanation and truth behind this story. When the men are about to open their slips of paper and everyone is frightened and worried who will have it “… Mr. Summers holding his slip of paper in the air said “alright, fellows…” (Shirley Jackson) At this time everyone is waiting to see who is the one with the black dot and no one moved. Nobody knew who had it until Tessie began to make a scene about her husband having it. In this particular moment it is apparent that the story is not at all what it is expected to be. Tessie is expected to be happy and cheering knowing that her husband had just won the lottery, except for in this twisted idea of a lottery. Secondly, as they are doing their re-draw for a new winner of the lottery people in the crowds kept hoping that it was not the young children “A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy” at this point it has become obvious that the lottery is not a good thing and people were not getting big amounts of money, the lottery turns out to be the person that has the black dot on their slip of paper is the one that gets stoned to death. That is why they were hoping that Nancy would not be the one to be stoned or the other kids, they still had a life to live, or until the next lottery; next year. Therefore this suspenseful story is a story that should be read by all grade

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