Symbolism In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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Shirley Jackson 's “The Lottery”, is a story chalk full of symbolism. Jackson uses symbolism to help her point out to the readers that humans are not completely innocent, no matter how innocent one may think of themself to be, or how innocent the world around them looks to be. “The Lottery” is very effective in making the reader question why tradition is so important. Jackson uses “The Lottery” to convey her hatred of humans hiding behind tradition and old habits to do evil. In writing this story, she shows how lack of emotion and following in others footsteps can lead to dangerous and situations. Jackson uses a major symbol in order to display the theme for the story. Jackson also uses symbolism in the lucky lottery winners’ names, the setting, …show more content…
The symbolism is what makes it so intriguing. The amount of symbolic depth Jackson adds into the short story is amazing because she wrote “The Lottery” in less than two hours. This short story’s main literary device is symbolism and Jackson uses symbolism to form a whole different world that parallels our world so well. This story makes the reader think about how the principles presented within can be applied to their everyday life. The slips of paper in the end that float away in the wind are symbolic of how easy life can be taken from someone. Also there are so many colonies, like the village, that were predestined to fail from the start because of the tradition the leaders originally set. Those places could have made it if they would have just changed tradition. The reader can see that even Tessie does not regret the lottery. Even when Tessie is facing death she only pleads for a redraw not for the tradition to be removed. Again Jackson writes in more symbolism by showing that Tessie never had the chance to question the lottery that eventually she would die from. We always have the chance to question the traditions around us and the people who are in our lives. We can always aim for a better opportunity at life than the characters in “The Lottery”. We always have a chance to change things for the better. And that’s what Shirley Jackson was trying to show

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