Stoning

1. I think “The Lottery” takes place somewhere rural in the United States. As stated in the text, this story takes place in a small village with around 300 people. I think the writer Shirley Jackson made this setting appear familiar and ordinary because the people living in this village are normal people and they live in a normal village. I also think the writer tried to shock the readers at the end when we realize these people in this village aren’t so normal because they stoned Mrs.…

brave enough to challenge it. The issue of following the crowd to do things despite their graveness has been portrayed where Mrs. Dumbar chooses only the small stones for stoning the villager, unlike Mrs. Delacroix who only chooses the big stones. This clearly shows that Mrs. Dumbar is unenthusiastic about the tradition of stoning but still does it because the crowd around her does it (Jackson,…

In Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, the concept is explored that a person can become desensitized to acts or values that he or she is raised with. The values of the people in the village have, at the time of the story’s telling, been in place for many years, as demonstrated by Old Man Warner’s remarks. “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery… Seventy-seventh time.” Given his position as the one of if not the single oldest person in the village, it is clear that Old Man Warner…

used in past lotteries such as the black box or ritual salutes and chants. However, these traditions have been lost and forgotten through time and so villagers just skip them and just get to the important stuff such as the drawing of the names and stoning of the person who’s chosen. It is also described that other villages have stopped conducting the lottery which implies that they find no use to continue the tradition due to losing its purpose of its meaning over time. Therefore, it comes as a…

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948), she conveys through her character’s actions the morbid reality of what people are willing to do in order to survive. Jackson created the image of a cheerful small village where everyone knows everyone to make the reader realize that surviving is human nature. And the actions needed for survival can be anywhere and at any time. By using ‘the lottery’ to choose a human sacrifice, Jackson is able to directly convey a theme of survival. Each character in…

lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (Jackson). Mr. Summers is ready to set the black box down and places slips of paper in the slot found in the middle top part of the box. The winning prize is stoning. It shows that there are connections and similarities between the Citizen (villagers) in the short story, the Lottery and the Civil War, US (1861-1865) by Slavery in the United States, President Abraham Lincoln, & etc.…

violence. This tradition was first put into use because in the past there were human sacrifices in order to get good crops for farmers, and they just kept using it through time. The person who wins the lottery has to let the townspeople stone them. This stoning ritual was brutal, horrifying, and cruel. It conveyed violence to the younger members of that village, and to the…

In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” there are many contradictions between readers that leaves so many unanswered questions and doesn’t have a broad meaning about as to why the author decided to publish such a story. There are many symbolical meanings in the story and plenty of detailed emotions about how the characters are feeling, their gestures, and how they communicate with one another. Jackson’s short story is considered to be one the most loved and hated stories of the 20th…

Assent - and you are sane - Demur - you’re straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain - In Shirley Jackson’s intriguing short story “The Lottery,” the reader witnesses the power of conformity. The residents of the town take part in a barbaric stoning ceremony simply because it is a tradition from many years past. Most of the residents, even the older ones, can’t explain exactly why the lottery is necessary, but they participate in it anyway. In the poem “Much Madness is Divinest…

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,…