How Does Shirley Jackson Use Symbols In The Lottery

Superior Essays
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is an interesting great short story filled with symbolism. This short story is based on a small village that has a “lottery” every year. This lottery has been a ritual that has been passed down ever since the village has been founded. In this short story Jackson uses “The Lottery” to help her show her readers that human nature is tainted, no matter how pure one thinks they are, or how pure their environment may seem to be. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism, imagery, and foreshadowing to show the setting throughout “The Lottery”, the objects, the people’s actions, and the time and the names of the lucky contestants. The setting of the story helps to magnify its impact on the readers because it is set in a small …show more content…
The box is painted in black, which has always been a universal symbol for death and evil. The box also symbolizes a type of mystery, but as we read the ending we realize that it is the same with doom. Someone’s fate lies in this object, the black box. This black box revolves around all the evil acts that executed in the past and the ones to come. We do not always enjoy change, even if it might prove beneficial to us. This is one of the main points that Jackson is trying to express to her readers and that is why the black box is symbolic of the dislike of change. Though it is old and broken into small pieces we still use it. As Jackson even points out that the box was made from the black before it, which was from the beginnings of the village. This is showing that we desperately hang on to what is familiar rather than change. This also symbolizes the need to hold onto that we hold on to the most trivial traditions of the community. No one in the little town raise any questions where the black box came from, they rather just accept it as a basic part of their daily lives not questioning …show more content…
The first look is how the boys make piles of stones in the beginning of the story. This just shows that we as a civilization are the only as decent and good as we are conditioned to be. That there is an inherit trait in all of us, even the children, to be able to be excited and spirited so much as to build a pile of stones for the sake of killing one of their neighbors, when there is an excuse and the cause to do so. As the lottery gets underway we can start to see that there is another trait that is projecting through symbolism that the hesitation and self-preservation. When Mr. and Mrs. Adams said how the lottery is an old and some of the villages have stopped their lotteries, that caused by an action of fear of the fact he may have the black dot. Ms. Delacroix says of how it seems that the last lottery just happen and that Ms. Graves agrees with her, this shows that neither are happy that the lottery is happening again, as both know their husbands could have the black dot. After, this none of these families have the black dot the way they appear to feel about the lottery is completely different. They all now just want to see who in the Hutchison family will be stoned today. Ms. Delacroix seemed to be the most evil spirted of all when, even after she was shown a sign of good will toward Tessie only moments before, “grabs a stone so big she can

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Using characters, symbols, and irony, “The Lottery” shares insight into the human condition; no matter how morally corrupt something might be, people will go along with anything that society or the community deems as the norm. To begin with, the speech and actions of the characters play an important role in the theme of “The Lottery”. What is interesting about the characters in “The Lottery” is that all the characters in the story are presented as normal, small town people. The characters are meant to represent the reader’s neighbors, friends, and family. The characters, much like the reader’s loved ones in real life,…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the beginning the author uses the black box to embody the feeling of terror in the villagers. For example, “Families started to murmur when Mr. Jovial carried the black box over to the middle of the square.” The reason why they’re murmuring is because they are petrified of having their fate chosen for them again; those who cards have been drawn would…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He decides to use pieces of paper in the black box because there are more than 300 people in the town now and the box is no longer big enough to hold 300 wood chips. In addition, the black box has been put in different places and people forget where they have put it. Sometimes it sits in Mr. Graves's barn, or it is put underfoot in the post office, and also set on a shelf in the Martin’s grocery. The town’s leaders forget where the black box is from year to year, even though the lottery is part…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For example, the black box is a large symbol of tradition. Despite the box old, faded, and broken, the townspeople refuse to replace it on the baseless claim that it was made from an older box. The lottery itself is a warning against blindly abiding by the arbitrary rules set by previous generations. The townspeople do not question the motives behind this tradition, and that the act of mob-killing a random person – whether that be friend, family, or stranger – on an arbitrary day of the year somehow places the town on a higher moral platform than the towns that do…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Archetypes In The Lottery

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The present black box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it…” and that it has been there “even before Old Man Warner” (1). It is an object used to perpetuate tradition. In reality, people use objects like the stones in traditional punishments. Symbols in such stories represents dark elements from cultural traditions. In “The Lottery”, the characters, the lottery tradition, and the material objects are example of those elements.…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For that which supports the present day box of meaningless and perverted superstition is the body of unexamined tradition of at least six thousand years of man’s history.” It represents how man supports old, archaic traditions and uses things like the bible in order to support his or her viewpoint. Even to this day, people still use the Bible to support their views such as suppressing gay marriage. They use the Bible to justify legislature (the black box) that prevents them from being happy. More allusions in this short story come in the form of the names the townspeople—some of the more obvious ones being Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers.…

    • 1259 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The townspeople take out a black box once a year in the summer season, on the date of June 27th, and have done so for a considerable amount of time. In this black box holds slips of paper with one paper containing a black dot on it. Whomever draws this slip of paper is the person that has been chosen to be stoned to death. The stones have been collected by the children before the ceremonial lottery has begun, so after the slip of death has been chosen by Tessie Hutchinson, the children proceed by approaching her throwing stones and rocks at her until she is pronounced dead. In some way, the color of the box—black— in itself represents death.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The black box contains the slip of paper that sentences the person to death, and the stones are what is used to kill the person, or stone them to death. This is proof because both show examples of death, and death is the key theme in “The Lottery”.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Black Box is one of the things within the story that symbolizes the tradition that they have held for so long. In the fourth paragraph of the story it reads “ .. the black box now resting on the stool…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, is a story about an annual lottery taking place in a small town in New England. Every year the lottery is held, where the winner of the random lottery is then stoned to death. This lottery has been a long held tradition in this small town and it is a tradition that everyone must take part in. The man in charge of the lottery drawing, Mr. Summers, call each head of household forward to a black box, where they must select a small piece of paper. After the men have chosen, they are allowed to open the paper and see who is selected.…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Stoning Ages Around the same time every year someone gets stoned, in the short story “The Lottery” By Shirley Jackson. The story takes place in a small town in New England. Every year a “lottery” as the villagers call it is held, one person is to be randomly chosen to be stoned to death by the people in the village. The lottery has been around for over seventy years by the townspeople.…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    This black box symbolizes the tradition of the very old town. Everyone is whispering in the town about the lottery because they are too afraid to speak out in front of the town. In the text it states, “Seems like there is no time at all between lotteries any more, Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row. Seems like we got through with the last one only last week.” (94)…

    • 1613 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Shirley Jackson is the author of the short story called “The Lottery.” When reading this story, the reader could possibly believe that they are able to foresee the ending. “The Lottery” takes place in a small town, with a population of about three hundred people, on June 27 at ten in the morning. Jackson provides the reader with visuals that range from the town gathering and getting ready for the lottery to the town kids playing outside and collecting rocks. The importance of this lottery is that is not what it comes off to be, instead it is an act of sacrifice that is believed to be important in order to keep society stable.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It would seem logical to replace the old, dilapidated black box. However, when the subject of making a new box was addressed the villagers refused. For the reason that, “no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (Jackson 134). Traditions remain timeless because they remain unchanged throughout time. The symbolism of the shabby black box represents how people have the tendency to hold on to familiar things rather that embrace…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Set in 1948 and published in The New Yorker, the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson describes an annual ritual, in a small village that leads to death for an unlucky winner. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” follows the genre conventions of a classic dystopian short story through the use of symbolism and connection between specific themes from the story to many common, yet profound and complex characteristics of dystopian literature in order to implicitly and thoughtfully convince the audience to protest against the dehumanization of society and random, pointless killings as well as become aware of the government. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to show the dehumanization of the villagers. Shirley Jackson introduces the story to the audience with a warm and pleasant approach to suggest that the lottery is just another typical annual celebration, where the winner will obtain valuable prizes.…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays