Shirley Ardell Mason

Before: At the beginning of the story, the tone is warm, innocent and childlike. In paragraph 1, it states " The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up her jaws." This symbolizes that it is autumn, and the harvest season create the colors of the day in a vision of nature in its beauty. As the story continues, Myop's excitement becomes contagious. In paragraph 2, it states " She felt light and good in the…

In “The Lottery” there are many different literary devices we can figure out in the specific storyline of the lottery and in its themes. “The Lottery” focuses on an extremely heavy amount of suspicion between different social classes in the story. This suspense is a literary device that can be heavily seen through the story. There are many subtle hints that lead to a shocking conclusion that what these villagers do to each other every year is seen as a very old ritualistic tradition. Old man…

In 1948, Shirley Jackson wrote the famous short-story that would be read in classroom across America, called “The Lottery”. “The Lottery” is a short story about a small village who believe in a tradition that once a year someone will be picked at random, from a lottery, to be stoned by the whole village. It doesn’t say for sure why they do this but readers can assume that it is a traditional sacrifice to have good harvest in the fall due to Old Man Warner saying, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy…

Last week in our class we read and watched the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. The story has a main character, Tessie Hutchinson, and her family, who “win” the lottery. This story takes place in a small village. The people there kept their lottery, even though they could have gotten rid of it, because they wanted to stick with their traditions of ritualistic violence. This tradition was first put into use because in the past there were human sacrifices in order to get good crops for…

Davey Hutchinson Now I'm Davey Hutchinson and I was born in a rural town. My town still has the tradition of "The Lottery". I vaguely remember my mother was picked in the lottery and was killed when I was three years old. As I have grown up, I started to understand how inhumane this "lottery" is. Each year somebody I have known has died in the lottery. Last year my best friend was selected and he was stoned just like his brother before him. After my friend died, I went…

One can see by examining the poetic justice of the murder at the end, and the foreshadowing of the strange murder weapons, the rocks, in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, that this story is a classic archetypal horror story. Firstly, one can see that when Tessie Hutchinson, the wife of Bill Hutchinson, was the only one late for the lottery, she wins the lottery, and then is killed. This is an example of poetic justice. Poetic justice, also known as Karma, is the fitting or deserving punishment or…

At first, the story was very complicated to understand, because the author is very descriptive and while I was reading the text, I had a presentiment of uncertainty. Then, I took my time to read it and now, I think it’s clearer in my head. Normally, the lottery is a fun event, but not in this short story. It really surprised me that we are talking about stoning and death at the end of it. I think the author wanted us to understand what was really happening, only in the end. At the beginning,…

Lottery by Shirley Jackson is about a small village in the 50s with a sinister tradition. Every year they have a lottery where you don't want to win. Instead of a hefty cash reward you are stoned to by not only your fellow villagers but your family and friends. They are still doing the lottery because they think this will help with growing crops and they don't want to embrace change so they still believe in this far-fetched story. It was once a sacrifice but turned into a recurring tradition.…

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary a scapegoat is a person who is unfairly blamed for something that others have done. The word "scapegoat" originates from a practice in the Old Testament in which the high priest put his hands on a goat that has been chosen by lot and, in the belief that the person sin has been put upon the goat. The goat is then turned loose in the wilderness. Consequently, the concept was widened to take account of human beings who had been taken away from their…

The Lottery is a story about a ritual held every year in which everyone participates as a way of keeping order and following tradition. After names are drawn, the one that ends up with a black-dotted slip is murdered by the townspeople using stones. This plot of the story enables the author to prove a point; human society blindly follows traditions without any background information or factual reassurance. Although this ritual has been altered, the main idea of the ceremony, to kill or injure a…