When it comes to stories there is usually characters that we follow and get to know along the way, sometimes we only get to meet a character briefly and then there gone, and other times characters can mean more than who they are in a story. Shirley Jackson does just this in the short story “The Lottery” written in 1948. In this short story where the village has an annual lottery that is taken place in the summer to decide who will be stoned to death as a sacrifice for a tradition that might have been used to bring a good harvest. Jackson uses characters and their names as symbols in her story, particularly Mr. Graves his name being an obvious representation of graves. Jackson does this by using Mr. Graves to symbolize the coming of death, at
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Graves is Death by helping little Dave with the participation of the lottery. Even thou Dave is young, naïve and doesn’t really understand what is going on, Mr. Graves isn’t affected by him having to help a child to his possible death, much like the way death doesn’t discriminate when it comes to taking the life of someone young and someone old. “Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. […] Mr. Graves took the child’s hand out and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.” (???) The boy goes up without hesitation to partake in this ritual of death, not really understanding the consequences of winning the lottery. Jackson also uses Mr. Graves to represent death itself and uses papers as a metaphor for death, taking the five possible taking lives and giving back life to the rest. The five selected papers being the potential winners, and the discarded papers that floated off in the breeze being life returning to the rest of the town. “Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.” (435) He selects five papers put them back for the drawing, and let go of the rest being swept off by the …show more content…
Graves to represent death and does this by first casting a shadow of death. After she continues to use him to effect the story when he is introduced in the ritual and shifting the view from Mr. Graves to the nervous villagers. As the ritual get closer to an end she then hints that he is death by using Little Dave as an example showing that even thou he is a young child, death doesn’t discriminate on taking his life. She further hints that he is death by using the pieces of paper as a metaphor of death selecting potential winners and then giving the rest of the villagers their life back, hence the papers in the wind. Finally, Jackson brings out death himself when Mr. Graves is one of the first people to stone Tessie.
Graves is Death by helping little Dave with the participation of the lottery. Even thou Dave is young, naïve and doesn’t really understand what is going on, Mr. Graves isn’t affected by him having to help a child to his possible death, much like the way death doesn’t discriminate when it comes to taking the life of someone young and someone old. “Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. […] Mr. Graves took the child’s hand out and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.” (???) The boy goes up without hesitation to partake in this ritual of death, not really understanding the consequences of winning the lottery. Jackson also uses Mr. Graves to represent death itself and uses papers as a metaphor for death, taking the five possible taking lives and giving back life to the rest. The five selected papers being the potential winners, and the discarded papers that floated off in the breeze being life returning to the rest of the town. “Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.” (435) He selects five papers put them back for the drawing, and let go of the rest being swept off by the …show more content…
Graves to represent death and does this by first casting a shadow of death. After she continues to use him to effect the story when he is introduced in the ritual and shifting the view from Mr. Graves to the nervous villagers. As the ritual get closer to an end she then hints that he is death by using Little Dave as an example showing that even thou he is a young child, death doesn’t discriminate on taking his life. She further hints that he is death by using the pieces of paper as a metaphor of death selecting potential winners and then giving the rest of the villagers their life back, hence the papers in the wind. Finally, Jackson brings out death himself when Mr. Graves is one of the first people to stone Tessie.