"The common curse of mankind,--folly and ignorance," Shakespeare once wrote. This quotation strengthens Shirley Jackson's ideas in "The Lottery", as she very distinctly uses symbolic names for her characters to show the ignorance of the sacrificial lottery the small village holds year after year. These sacrifices, which used to be held to appease the god of harvest, have grown meaningless in their culture. Jackson uses the characters not only to visualize the story for the reader but also each one has a meaning behind him/her that adds to the ultimate theme.

One of the leaders and head men of the town is Mr. Summers. Summer is a

season of the year. It is the season of growing, the season of life. His name

represents partly the old pagan fertility ritual because the harvest that is being sacrificed to is being grown in the summer. This is supposedly, according to Old Man Warner, what the lottery held each year was all about. But, in this case, the harvest should be fine because the setting of the story tells us that "the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green" (74). Mr. Summers did many things to slowly ween the old tradition, the ol

The younger generation having to start taking part in this occasion is portrayed by young Jack Watson. He is finally head of the household and is drawing for his family. There is a possible chance that Jackson could have been somehow referring to a famed American psychologist by the name of John B. Watson. John B. Watson was a leading popularizer of behaviorism in Shirley Jackson's time. Behaviorism takes objective evidence of behavior (as measured responses to stimuli) as the only basis of its research and theories. In other words, young Jack Watson was supposed to be portraying the new idea of the younger generation: that they knew what they were doing was wrong because of the simple evidence of innocent people dying.

One of these is Old Man Warner. Mr. Warner is the oldest man in town and, therefore, having the most knowledge of what the original tradition was all about. He lets us know that there has "always been a lottery" (77). He is repetadly shown "warning" the younger parents and the younger generation of what they are in for if they do away with the lottery. Hence, he gets the name Warner. He claims the "young folks" are a "pack of crazy fools" and that "nothing is good enough for them" (77). Jackson referrs to him as "Old Man" Warner partly to show you his age and that he should know the most about the lottery. But, also partly to show that his oldness, his mindset that he is the wisest, is holding the community back from the good changes that could occur. For some reason, Jackson has allowed this man to live through the lotter

Some common words found in the essay are:
Summers Summer, Jack Watson, Warner Warner, Shirley Jackson's, Shirley Jackson, Jackson's Behaviorism, Names Lottery, John Watson, shirley jackson's, sacrificial killing, black dot, black box, john watson, jack watson,
Approximate Word count = 1055
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)