Symbolism the lottery
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story full of symbolism. It takes place on a beautiful summer day in a small town. Though the location of the town, or village, is never given, it appears to be no different than most rural communities. The story begins very light-hearted but has a surprising ending. The people of the town are gathering to determine whose life will be sacrificed by randomly selecting pieces of paper from a black box. Jackson said the purpose of the story was “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (254). She accomplishes this by creating an image of an average town, with average people, combining foreshadowing and symbolism, and finally shocking us with the people’s actions. Jackson states that in larger towns the lottery can take two days, but in this small town of 300 people, it takes only a couple of hours, so people can stone the unfortunate lottery winner to death and still be home in time for lunch. The children are even involved, gathering stones for the beating. This symbolizes how de-sensitized a society becomes after being exposed to senseless violence for such a long time. Also, the pil
After the papers are drawn, people look at them and try to determine who chose the piece of paper with the black dot- black again symbolizing death. The people immediately think it will be the Dunbars or the Watsons, who happen to be the weakest or least useful. Mr. Dunbar has a broken leg and there is no Mr. Watson- only a mother and son. This symbolizes the tendency of people to think that a weak person’s life is not as valuable as that of a stronger person. The winner of the lottery is Bill Hutchinson. His wife, Tessie, is displeased and argues that the drawing was unfair. Now the family must all draw to see who will actually be killed. Tessie is the one who is chosen. She was the last one to arrive in the square and the only one to rebel. This is symbolic of society’s attempt to suppress those who try to change things or don’t go along with the crowd. Mr. Summers leads the lottery, as well as the square dances, teenage club, and Halloween club. The name “Summers” suggests that he is a carefree, leisurely man and to support this, he is described as a “round-faced, jovial man” with “time and energy to devote to civic activities” (255). Summer is also the time of year that the lottery is held every year, of which Mr. Summers is the official. Mr. Graves stands behind Mr. Summers and the name Graves symbolizes the dark undertone of the story. It also describes the personality of the pos
Some topics in this essay:
Shirley Jackson’s,
Graves Martin,
Bill Hutchinson,
Dunbars Watsons,
black box,
senseless violence,
paper black,
papers drawn,
lottery winner,
“the lottery”,
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Approximate Word count = 963
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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