The Lottery (Death and sin Symbolized by Black)

The symbolism of black in the short story “The Lottery”* by Shirley Jackson. I believe the color black in this story “The Lottery” has the universal meaning of death and sin, which are often depicted as the same thing and are interchangeable. Death we find contained in a shabby black box and sin just happens to come along as a black dot on a square of plain paper. This lottery Shirley Jackson writes about has a totally different outcome then most conventional lottery .The lottery is played to actually pick out that years sacrificial ‘human’ lamb. The black box that holds all the folded paper with the names of the town folks is the perfect symbol of death; not only is everyone’s name in it but no one knows when their name with the black dot will come up. We find out quickly in the story that this lottery has been around for a long time: “There was a story that the present box had been made with some of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people had settled down to make

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This black box then has been with them for time eternal and since time eternal humankind has been haunted by death and its meaning. Like death this black box is not greeted with open arms “The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool (255)” which the black box had been sat upon. This black box is not something to be embraced but it seems with the towns folk gathering perhaps out of morbid curiosity year after year to hold this dammed lottery that it has become a tradition something that is done with not much thought but as a repetitive motion something that is outside of their control. “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented (256)” You can see that this statement has two meanings first some people want to pretty up death such as Mr. summer but the majority of people want to leave death well enough alone undisturbed to leave tradition as is, to avoid attracting attention to themselves and the outcome of fate. Mr. summers also is leaning on the box b

Some topics in this essay:
Shirley Jackson, Tessie Hutchins, black box, Symbolized Black, black dot, Jackson Death, shirley jackson, death sin, lottery shirley jackson, paper black dot, paper black, sin village, story “the, meaning death, lottery shirley,