... was particularly driven to write this literary work by some of the traditions that she experienced in her life that she didn't believe in (Bloom 15). The message of this short story is that violent traditions are way past time and shouldn't be considered morally correct. The author presents the society around this small town as rigid due to the unknown fear ... disturbing tendency of society to identify a scapegoat and the perception that societies are always victims of traditions and rituals that have existed in such communities (Wilson 78). At first, this short story is very worrying ...

• Word Count: 1254
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the short stories "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," by Ambrose Bierce and "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson, the authors left their audience in shock and awe. These authors were successful in their surprise endings because of the unique arrangement of the story; they carefully set up ... 'occurrence' to neutralize the audience so the reader knows they are going to find out what the occurrence is at some point during the story. Not only that but Farquhar kept hearing his watch with the ticking progressively slowing down with each tick. "The intervals of silence grew ... the audience f...

• Word Count: 903
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... be some of the less radical traditions across cultures, especially when compared to the tradition of drawing a sacrifice to be stoned in Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery." Jackson presents a small town that has a yearly lottery on June 27th, that determines which one of its inhabitants ... and discomfort that comes with changing what is custom through foolish and outdated traditions in order to keep morals and ethics intact. The story demonstrates that most notable flawed logic that Jackson demonstrates in "The Lottery" over time is that traditions get dilute, with ... the lo...

• Word Count: 1719
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the directions" (146). However, as the people anxiously await the end of this annual, ritualistic event known as the lottery, no one expresses a single opinion about the behavior. In the short story "The Lottery" the author Shirley Jackson utilizes several propaganda techniques in order to show that people need to think for themselves. To begin with, exigency, one of the main techniques ... time to think they blindly follow the crowd. From the beginning, the villagers rush the lottery and expect it to last "less than two hours," (144). This seems an unreasonably short period of time for...

• Word Count: 626
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate