Shirley Ardell Mason

Symbols in “The Lottery” What is in a name? In literature, names of characters and places often play into the meaning of the text. The characters in, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves, Mr. Warner, and Tessie Hutchinson have many ironic or hidden meanings such as leadership, tradition, death, and fate. These names in the story help play into the opposition of the text and the meaning of the story and also help it fit into the deconstruction theory. First, a smaller…

Sustained Analysis: The Lottery This passage creates a bigger picture that can be related to our world today. The lottery is like any tradition that is blindly followed and left unquestioned for current generations. The lottery is essentially morally wrong however, no one questions it until, ultimately, they are the chosen ones. The passage describes the way in which Mr. Summers spoke to Bill, which was “formally.” Mr. Summers asks him, “How many kids, Bill?” This word choice helps to develop…

The Lottery Shirley Jackson In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses irony and satire to show the selfishness of one character and the idiocy of sacrifice or of blindly following tradition. The morning of June 27th was a dreadful morning. It was the day of the Lottery. The Lottery is anonymous drawing to sacrifice a villager. It could be anyone! You’d think this to be a very scary and horrifying event, but the villagers accepted their fate a long time ago and got over it. The Lottery causes many…

A theme that you can construct from the story “The lottery” is “The danger of blindly following tradition.” This theme is shown thru many techniques Shirley Jackson uses in the story.The villagers should stop this tradition that is messing with a person's death faith. One of the techniques shirley jackson uses is dialogue. She uses this technique by making the characters sound nervous and worried about what will happen next.”A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand.”Here”,he said. Im drawing…

In the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author uses subversive irony to accentuate the underlying tenebrosity/inhumanity and lethality/brutality of the town and its people. The title “The Lottery” connotes a lottery with a winner who attains a reward or a positive involvement, but is ironic to the ending of the story. Jackson begins her short, startling/suspenseful story by establishing the setting as an idyllic town on an early summer day: “The morning of June 27th was clear…

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story with a surprising and ironic ending. Instead of getting a reward after the drawing, the person actually dies from getting stoned. Jackson had a greater purpose with this story other than its astonishing ending. Through the story Jackson reveals her world view of conformity. Often the world has way too much of it, especially during the year 1948 when the story was published. Jackson uses the problems associated with conformity in the world around her,…

In her short story, “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson provides an important social commentary on the dangers of adhering to tradition without logic or meaning; her use of character and tone supplement her ideas by showing how the lottery has become outdated. Jackson’s use of character fortifies her social commentary by showing how the characters blindly follow an outdated and unnecessary tradition. The townsfolk only care about themselves and how the lottery benefits or harms them. In town,…

In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson explains to us the way the lottery is worked. Shirley Jackson used many different elements and rituals to create this story. Shirley Jackson is trying to get us to understand the meaning of each symbolism he has said the story. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to illustrate the themes of the lottery box and stoning which in turn help enhance the action of the plot. A theme discovered was the powerlessness of villagers participating in the…

1. The author used third person point of view for this story. She described an un-named village that held a lottery every year. Whoever was picked from the lottery, was stoned to death. The position the author had, knew the outcome of the story. Therefore, she did not use perceptive on any of the characters. She gave a lot of information on following tradition, customs, society issues, and barbarism was even practiced in this story. 2. If the story was written with an omniscient point of…

Through generations we follow a certain traditions without thought. Where the traditions come from and what they meant originally never come to mind. Those moments we never stop to think about the impact it has. In her short story "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson 's theme of the deadly consequences of refusing to critically examine a long-standing tradition is supported through her use of character, setting, climax, and conflict. “Jackson was born on December 14, 1919 in San Francisco,…