The Lottery
In the short story "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson portrays an average New England town with typical farm citizens embarking on a disturbing evil. On June 27th of every year the members of the community hold a village wide lottery in which everyone is expected to attend. At first we do not know what the lottery is, all we know is that it is held every year and that there is a "winner". Jackson tries to set up the story as that there would be a positive outcome; however, this description of the setting foreshadows exactly the opposite of what is to come. From start to finish there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen. The author also goes into great detail of describing the surroundings of the town from what kind of day it was to what the black box looked like. In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", Jackson focuses on religion, the views of the townspeople, and descriptions certain symbols. We can see that in this story religion plays a major factor in the outcome of the story. At first the townspeople seem to be of Christian background because the story is describing characteristics we have in today's society. Later on in the story we start to see more of a Pagan influence. We first
The People of this town have many different views of the lottery. Through out the story you can see signs of the lottery losing support. But since the lottery has been used for so many years and the townspeople know what he lottery brings, this makes them too afraid to challenge it. By these actions you can see the primitiveness of these people, even though the story describes the society we would live in today. The people are still scared to challenge what is right. The Children in the beginning of the story gives some foreshadowing to what is going to happen in the end. Jackson makes it easy for us to imagine the children's "boisterous play" (255) and the children are described in depth. These children symbolize perceived states of happiness in the story. The children are vital necessities in the story because they are taught and expected to carry the traditions of the lottery. Overall the Lottery is losing support from the people every year, but when the winner is chosen they still do not have a problem with stoning that person. This is proving that the people of this town are still living in a primitive state. see the Pagan influence with Old Man Warner saying "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon" (258). Also this is th
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Approximate Word count = 832
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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