The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Analysis

The town’s people never openly agreed or disagreed with the purpose of the lottery, however there was a brief discussion with some characters about how other places had already got rid of the lottery. While, only Old Man Warner, expressed his distaste for getting rid of the lottery by calling them “a pack of crazy fools” and “theres always been a lottery.” Jackson’s omission of the purpose affects my interpretation of the story because it allows me to come up with my own depressing conclusion. The mood in the first three paragraphs of the story is pleasant and maybe even joyful. After the third paragraph and change of mood it quickly changes to more of a somber feeling. This effect makes the reader suspect something unfortunate is about to happen. One symbol Jackson used was the old beaten down black box that held all the “lottery” slips. Black usually signifies death and the state that the box was in (faded and scratched on) represents an “overused” or “ancient” meaning. The second symbol used was how the children were picking and stacking stones on the side. Jackson detailed the fact that some of the kids were …show more content…
It does affect my interpretation of the story because before I thought the village would be set in an earlier time period. While, reading the text I did surprisingly imagine the village to be in the late 1800s or 1920s. Textual evidence mentioned a coal factory and women in flowery dresses. Coal factories began to sprout up historically around the 1800s and 1920s. As for the flowery dresses, floral prints began to become truly popular or common in women’s fashion around that same time period. However, when I got to the stoning scene (the conclusion), I was in denial the time period would be any later than the 1700s. Stoning is such a primitive execution style, only found today in very secluded or barbaric