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Literary Analysis of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

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The Lottery is an interesting short story written by Shirley Jackson and published in 1948. It is a fictional short story about a fictional society with events that might never have taken place in reality. The story raises such interesting societal aspects about traditions and the belief in them by society. The ending is rather unexpected and comes as a surprise to the reader as it is revealed in the story that the ending is violent and cruel. It is interesting to investigate and explore this matter in the story and how the author reflected upon the theme in The Lottery. How traditions in society and their impact is reflected upon by the author in the story?

The story begins on a summer day in June when the village gathers to attend the lottery. Mr. Summers is the responsible one for the lottery because of the free time that he spends doing things for his society. Mrs. Hutchinson arrives late to the crowd because she forgot that it is the day of the lottery. The author illustrates such a festive and beautiful image of the day and the event which almost everyone in the village attends. However, this image of a festive atmosphere stays never longer than the start of the drawings and when Tessie Hutchinson is declared a winner. Hopelessly, she tries to protest against the results claiming that Mr. Summers did not give Bill Hutchinson, Mrs. Hutchinson’s husband, enough time to choose any paper he wanted. The story ends when everyone, including family members, starts to throw rocks at Tessie Hutchinson as the prize of the lottery is the death of the winner by throwing rocks by the society members. 

The only thing that the reader knows about the literary device is that the story takes place on the 27th of June on a warm summer day. It is worth referring to the skillful use of contrasts in the story by illustrating a beautiful day with a festive atmosphere while at the same time ending the story in a surprising way by declaring that the prize is to be killed by rocks. This is an interesting way to illustrate the environment in which the fictional events take place and contribute to the suspension of the story. Yet, the ending is not completely surprising as the author prepares the reader for the terrifying event that is about to happen in contrast to what was illustrated at the beginning of the story with the summer day and the prevailing festive mood among society members. The fact is that the event is very far from being festive or happy. It is a terrifying fact that the winner is killed while still, the villagers are celebrating this death and are involved in it by throwing stones at the winner.   

The protagonist of the story is Mrs. Hutchinson who fails to overcome the antagonist of the story which is to convince Mr. Summers to allow her husband to choose another paper. The result becomes that she dies as a consequence. This consequence makes sense of the story and delivers the moral of the story to the reader which is about blindly believing and following the traditions. 

The author could use contrasts in the ideas and in the language to make his point of the story. That is to say, Jackson could portray a tradition that everyone in the village follows and seems to be attractive, even to children. Yet, the belief in this tradition is horrifying because it leads to the death of a member of this society. Even the protagonist, Mrs. Hutchinson is, to some extent, convinced of this tradition and never questioned it but rather questioned her own death as a consequence. Moreover, the author describes the tradition in an interesting way when Jackson shows that almost all the villages already have given up on this tradition, but still the old man Warner, who I believe represents wisdom in the society, is unwilling to give the green light to give up upon this tradition of killing a society member. That is many aspects of the tradition have changed such as the black box but no one is willing to give up on it, including the wise man Walter. 

The author, Sherley Jackson, could develop an interesting story and precious ideas about traditions and how they blindly can be followed. Despite the fact that the story describes fictional events in a fictional society, it is still applicable in real life. That is, there are several traditions that exist in every society around the world and are never being questioned.  

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