Irony In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Improved Essays
In the story “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson the point, moral and theme of the story is a dark and cruel because it says that the townspeople stoned her due to the fact that there is overpopulation and it was a brutal way to remove someone from the village which is the irony that this story has. The tone of the story in the beginning of the story seems to be nice and smooth, the mood feels calm and gentle with nothing to fear.
For example, in the beginning of the story everybody is happy and cheerful, but towards
The middle of the story it gets a little intense because we think that the prize is money or something fancy but in reality it really isn’t. Another example to back up this point is a quote from a character in the story who is named Old man Warner says “It’s not the way it used to be” and “people ain’t the way they used to be”. The mood of the story is bipolar because in the beginning it has a nice feeling that you think that this story may not be what you thought it was going to be but when you reach the end. It
…show more content…
And a quote from a character named Hannah Arendt called the lottery “the banality of evil” because the end result shows a brutal way to get rid of someone because towards the end of the story, a section of it points out that “although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stone” which proves that this is a worst type of way to play a “ game” and would get a “prize” but in reality the prize is getting stoned to death to reduce the population in a village instead of asking nicely to just simply leave the village not just creating some game to get rid of huge amounts of people by throwing stones

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In most cases, people earn money from a lottery, except for the characters in the short story “The Lottery”. In this tale, the villagers in a small community are participating in their annual lottery. However, it turns out that the winners may win a lot less than they hoped for. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author uses symbolism to foretell what would happen later on in the story.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Lottery: Scapegoating and Maintaining Homogeneousness How a person becomes pauperized by society and customs, this is the example given by Shirley Jackson. The title “The Lottery” gives you some signs of winning, but how a whole story executes and takes place is shocking. Shocking in the sense, it shouldn’t have a meaning to win the lottery. This story takes place due to false belief and tradition.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Your short story, “The Lottery” should not have been published because the situational irony caused the readers to be shock. As you mention in your short story, it demonstrates “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right, Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” This means that when Tessie was picked she was shocked and fearful that it was her turn to be stone which made the readers be shocked as trim since they thought it was going to be another character. This illustrates that even if a person responds “I hope it is not me” can end up being pick still and get something positive or negative. This explains that it can rebate today where if anyone official goes to court and everyone votes guilty, the person will be ashamed and depressed and…

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Furthermore, throughout most of the story it sounds like the villagers are gathering for a fun event but as the true dynamics of the lottery are revealed the reader begins to feel the tension increase. “The lottery was conducted --as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities.” This is viewed as dramatic irony because there is nothing “civic” or civilized about murder. The lottery is seen as a “civic” activity on the same level as the square dances, teen club, and Halloween programs meaning this has become something routine or natural for them. Another example of dramatic irony in the story is the arrival of Mrs. Hutchinson, she arrives late claiming…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is discovered that the Hutchinson family is the one who draws the paper, following this, every member in the family has to draw once again, and this time the mother, Tessie is the one who draws the paper with the marking. Immediately after she begins to beg for a redrawing claiming that it was done unfairly, the reader still doesn’t know what exactly the lottery is, but judging by the reaction of Tessie it is safe to say that this is not something to be joyous about. After the lottery has ended the villagers all take up stones and start to stone the unlucky victim of the lottery ceremony. Throughout her short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson uses different allegories to display how religions can brainwash people. She llustrates how often people overlook their morals and awful or illogical deeds because of their ritualistic habits and within the story she uses historical context to do portray this…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    These interactions in her hometown inspired her writing in her life. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, she uses irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing to show that despite the seemingly innocent exterior of small town, there exists a strong tendency towards archaic traditions…

    • 1259 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fiction Essay (Rough Draft) Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was an acclaimed American writer most famous her short story, “The Lottery”. Jackson, born December 14, 1916 in San Francisco, California, had spent most of her childhood in the small town of nearby Burlingame, California. Not until the age of seventeen did Jackson move eastward to attend the University of Rochester were she then withdrew a year later. Fast-forward a year later, Jackson enrolled in Syracuse University in 1937 where there she published her first story, “Janice”.…

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today's society winning the lottery is extraordinary you get money without lifting a single finger. A girl in Canada just won the lottery on her 18th birthday, she was set for life without doing any of the work to earn the money she just got it handed to her. The lottery wasn’t like this in this short story, it wasn’t a good thing, it was actually a dreadful to win the lottery. “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson uses irony that reveals what the effects of blindly following traditions actually causes society.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson presents irony throughout the story by showing the effect of how tradition can change a town, which also shows how government has control of the people. The town itself represents our country’s government and how much control they have over the people. Certain people throughout the story represent those in power in government and how power is distributed throughout a country, or in the story throughout a town. The objects that the people in the story obtain represent the traditions that are within this country, which are deemed important. Government is the reason that a country functions the way that it does, because of the control that it has in people’s daily lives, those who are in power, and the traditions that government see as important.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Whoever wins the lottery gets the “honor” of having the entire town surrounding you, throwing stones at you until you reach death. There are no exceptions if you win, you win. Some characters are striving to keep tradition alive like Mr.Summers and the Old man, who…

    • 1613 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The title alone, “The Lottery,” used by the author as possibly an illusion to fool the reader that everything is not only okay but great. Perhaps the author purposely intended to mislead the reader, allegorically illustrating society’s blind-eye towards the subordination that women have always faced and the normalcy that has been prescribed to it. At the end of the story, the beautiful day suddenly turns dark and deadly following an age-old tradition of the lottery, the winner is stoned to death by the entire village of about three hundred people, and even the children participated. The author cleverly displays, through the characters and the text, the stereotypes of gender representation, and people’s disinclination to violate the rules of tradition, no matter how illogical the rules may be. Throughout the story, the author illustrates the separation between the male and female roles in society.…

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved 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

    Shirley Jackson demonstrates situational irony in the short story’s title. Generally the term “lottery”…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    How much longer must ignorance and pointless violence continue before we will start to change? The answer to this question may appear simple and in Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” the satire is obvious. By using literary criticisms readers can evaluate more in depth what the story is actually trying convey. Two major literary criticisms that will discussed in detail are Psychological Theory and Historical Criticism and New Historicism. Psychological Theory basically deals with the psychological aspect or the mindset of a person.…

    • 1987 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the short story, “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses imagery and symbolism to show that evil can be present in the most innocent environment, resulting in society being tainted with dark illusion. Superstitious tradition symbolized an important role to the people in this village. Mr. Summers a man that was in charge of the majority of the events in the town, always spoke about making a new black box but never did. (134) The people of the village would rather keep the same box rather than upsetting tradition with something new.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays