...THE LOTTERY - SUMMARY In A Nutshell "The Lottery" caused major controversy when it was first published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. Shirley Jackson's implicit critique of the brutality underlying the rituals and values of America's small towns outraged magazine readers, many of whom cancelled their subscriptions (see the Encyclopedia Britannica for more on the tale's publication history). As a side note – Jackson based "The Lottery" on her life in North Bennington, Vermont (source). Some of us here at Shmoop happen to be from that fine state, and we'd like to assure all potential tourists that despite what you may read in "The Lottery," you don't have to worry about sudden stoning in the Green Mountain State. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. The anonymous, generic village in which "The Lottery" is set, in addition to the vicious twist the story gives to a common American ritual, enhance the contemporary reader's uneasy sense that the group violence in the story could be taking place anywhere and everywhere, right now. Jackson's skillful warping of a popular pastime has become an American classic, establishing her position as one of the great American horror writers. Why Should I Care? So, if you've ever been hanging out with a group of friends and done something truly stupid, you may have heard the refrain, "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too?" Your answer is probably "no," but Shirley Jackson disagrees. She thinks you – and...
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...An Analysis of Author’s Purpose in Relation to Theme APA An Analysis of Author’s Purpose in Relation to Theme Thesis: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence differ in author’s purpose in that Jackson satirizes a society that blindly follows tradition, while Lawrence realistically portrays life’s problems; however, both share the theme of family. I. Jackson’s purpose for writing “The Lottery” is to satirize a society that blindly follows tradition. A. Jackson uses the graphic story to show the audience the brutality in society. B. Jackson’s short story also shows how society victimizes those randomly. II. Lawrence uses “The Rocking-Horse Winner” to highlight life’s problems. A. Paul’s mother, Hester, neglects to give her children the attention that they need and deserve to become healthy adults. B. Lawrence grew up in town where coal-mining was the livelihood. Lawrence’s father worked as a coal miner his whole life and expected his sons to do the same. Lawrence knew from an early age that he would not be a miner. C. Lawrence did not do well in school and was often alone and considered different. III. Both Jackson and Lawrence use their purpose for writing to portray theme. A. The lottery is based on family. Each member of every family are listed and must be present during the lottery. B. In “The Lottery” the unlucky person will experience their family turn against him or her...
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...The Lottery Topic of Society and Class On a basic level, "The Lottery" asks us to think about the rituals and traditions we unthinkingly follow as members of our society. Beyond critiquing the ways in which custom obscures right and wrong, the lottery also becomes a way of analyzing "traditional" social and gender divisions: the random distribution of paper means some families are fortunate and others aren't. We think it's significant that it's paper that has come to replace wood chips – much as paper money has taken the place of gold or goods for barter. The paper, either in the lottery or in your wallet, is symbolic of exchange value; as we get more "civilized," we lose track of what this paper really means. In the case of both the lottery and cash, paper can mean fortune, either good or bad – and it's disturbing how much life (and wealth) can be left up to the gambles of chance. Questions About Society and Class – Please answer the following questions and be prepared to present your ideas to the class. 1. How would you characterize the village's society? Happy? Affluent? Patriarchal? How does it compare to your own village/town/city? 2. What kinds of values do the townspeople seem to hold about the social roles of men and women? Do these roles have any connection to the lottery? 3. What's up with the children of the village – specifically the boys – being the first to stockpile stones? What, if anything, is Jackson trying to suggest about children? 4....
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...The Lottery Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory Sometimes, there’s more to Lit than meets the eye. The Lottery The lottery is like an 800-pound gorilla of symbols in this story. It's in the title, for Pete's sake. Where do we even begin? Well, let's start with the lottery as a way of upsetting reader expectations. After all, communities across America practice different annual traditions – Easter egg hunts (with origins in early fertility rituals), Christmas tree decorating (check out those patron trees of the Germanic tribes), or July 4th fireworks (well, that one just celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence ...). Anyway, our point is that we're all comfortable with yearly rituals – and it's often not widely known how these celebrations began. See how tradition obscures the history of public ritual? Anyway, back to the lottery. So, we associate lotteries with good things (winning cash prizes!) and annual celebrations also seem pleasant. We talk about this in "What's Up With the Title?" so we'll just say here that, like the blooming, cheerful village itself, there's nothing in the lottery that immediately suggests anything is wrong with this set-up. The lottery is, in fact, operating as an allegory of village life itself: at first, it seems harmless, but then we start to wonder what's going on with all the subdued smiles and piles of stones. So, if the lottery is an allegory of the community, its rules and proceedings must in some way correspond to real-life...
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...Literary Analysis of “The Lottery” In the year of 1948, author Shirley Jackson wrote a non-forgettable, haunting, short story about a lottery that takes place in a rural city. The author writes the story to take place in a small city in New England. This is not the typical lottery that first comes to mind. This is not a lottery where a one or more lucky winners are chosen at random to be given a great amount of money, but rather a lottery that is held annually in the city and one individual is selected at random to be killed by the citizens of the village. The tradition of the lottery has been practiced for many years by the people living in the city. The setting of ‘The Lottery’ hides the significance and the purpose of the lottery that actually takes place in the small city. Typically, if a ritual such as “The Lottery” has been part of society for such a great amount of time the habit is hard to break. Even as negative as someone being chosen at random to be killed by the people around them, others seek out that it will happen once per year no matter what. Jackson uses symbolism throughout the short story through objects and names of characters that hold meaning to the lottery. This short story may infer that a theme for the story is that not all traditions are positive and the outcome could literally be life changing. The name of each character in ‘The Lottery’ holds a symbolic meaning within the story. By using symbolic names, Jackson can foreshadow things that...
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...The Lottery vs. The Rocking-Horse Winner Dashua Murphy Liberty University Online Fiction Essay Thesis Statement: While “The Rocking-Horse Winner” and “The Lottery” differs on some levels, both stories carry the theme of death as a sacrifice for greater gain. 1) Need a. “The Lottery”: the village needs to uphold a cruel tradition to ensure a bountiful harvest b. “The Rocking-Horse Winner”: Paul needs to get “lucky” to satisfy the never ending needs of his mothers “unluckiness” 2) Unhealthy Support systems a. In “The Lottery” many of the villagers unconsciously support the cruel tradition of stoning one of its members for a better harvest b. In “The Rocking-Horse Winner” Bassett and Uncle Oscar unwittingly attribute to Paul’s failing of health and considerable need to stay “lucky” 3) Ritual practices a. The lottery is conducted yearly to select the “winner” who will become the “sacrificial lamb” that will preserve the life of the village b. Paul madly rides his rocking horse on a journey to where “luck” is until he receives an answer for who the winning horse will be in the next race 4) Untimely Death a. Tessie is stoned to death after her husband selects the slip of paper that has the “black spot” and her family has to re-draw for the “winning” ticket b. Paul dies as a result of pursuing an answer for his greatest and most rewarding Derby gamble 5) Real World * “Jackson” declared the purpose of “The Lottery” had been “to shock the stories readers...
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...“The Lottery” Shirley Jackson speaks about a game that is played every year that ends in death. Over the years this small town got accustomed to playing the lottery. It is a game of fun to the women, the men, and the children even if it ends in death. “The Lottery takes the classic theme of man’s inhumanity to man and gives it an additional twist: the randomness inherent in brutality. It anticipates the way we would come to understand the twentieth century’s unique lessons about the capacity of ordinary citizens to do evil” (Franklin). “The Lottery is definitely compared to the twentieth century due to the fact that they have a tradition to play a tragic game every year. Also their is no upper hand to stop this game everyone plays it and feels no remorse. “Trifles” is a play about a woman who gets accused of murdering her husband. “Though the play is celebrated as an early feminist drama, it stands on its own as an engrossing story. In the tale, two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, gradually uncover the motive for a murder, while their male counterparts are blinded by ignorance and insensitivity” (Jaworowski). The Attorney, Sheriff, a neighbor, and two of the men’s wives accompanied them to searched Mrs. Wrights house to see if they can find clues on why she would have murdered John Wright. The men enter the house with eyes of legal investigators while the two women enter the house with trying to understand why Mrs. Wright would do this to her husband. In “The Lottery” and “Trifles”...
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...Elements of Fiction In the story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the characterization is most found in three different characters. The first one is Tessie Hutchinson. She arrives late to the lottery, admitting that she forgot what day it was, she immediately stands out from the other villagers as someone different and perhaps even threatening. Whereas the other women arrive at the square calmly, chatting with one another and then standing peacefully by their husbands. Tessie arrives flustered and out of breath. The crowd must part for her to reach her family, and she and her husband endure good-natured teasing as she makes her way to them. Although Tessie quickly settles into the crowd and joins the lottery like everyone else, Jackson has set her apart as a kind of free spirit who was able to forget about the lottery entirely as she performed her chores. The other two characters are Old Man Warner, for his being the oldest and perhaps wisest to the lottery, and Mr. Summers for his frighteningly amount of power. The point of view in The Lottery uses the third person dramatic point of view to tell a story about an un-named village that celebrates a wicked annual event. The use of the third-person point of view, is an effective way of telling this ironic tale, both because the narrator’s reporter-like blandness parallels the villagers apparent apathy to the lottery, and because it helps build to the surprise ending by giving away bits of information to the reader through the...
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...Passage analysis from The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (355 words) The opening paragraphs of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson establish a scene of peaceful normality in a small village where the inhabitants are gathering on a summer’s morning to complete a traditional ritual. The selected passage describes the preparations for the lottery that is held every year in the square, organized by two respected men from the village. The relaxed informal mood of the opening paragraphs is maintained, however a sense of foreboding continues to grow as the reader is confronted with some unsettling questions. Jackson creates a scene where the characters are familiar with each other and are ostensibly relaxed and peaceful people. The adjectives used to describe Mr Summers – even his name suggests a cheerful man – are “round-faced” and “jovial” and the informal, friendly tone developed through gesture and dialogue when he “waved and called “Little late today, folks” clearly convey that this is not a man to be feared. The activities with which he is associated, “the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program” characterize him as a man to be trusted, one who is interested in community affairs. The other villagers even feel sympathy for him because he has “no children and his wife (is) a scold”. Elements of disquiet, however, are subtly introduced into this seemingly calm and casual scene. A second character is introduced, Mr Graves – again, the name is telling – who brings forth a “black...
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...“The Lottery and “Young Goodman Brown”. Making a decision which is better will be a tough choice. Although both stories are similar in its theme, it is transported differently in each story. The stories display different character analysis and word choice. I. My favorite pastime is reading short stories. a. Two stories I can read repeatedly. i. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. ii. “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. b. The authors battle with depression in their lives. i. Shirley Jackson was stricken server depression from time to time. ii. Nathaniel Hawthorne was depressed because of his ill health and the toll of the Civil War. II. Scenery and characters of “The Lottery” and Young Goodman Brown. a. Towns identified as small villages. i. “The Lottery” was a small village with no name. 1. The story gives a population of 300 people living there ii. “Young Goodman Brown” story took place in a small village called Salem. b. The wives in the story played contrast characters. i. Tessie Hutchinson was a main character that went through climax and denouement. ii. Faith Brown played somewhat of a static character. c. The husbands were portrayed differently in the stories. i. Bill Hutchinson persona was very multi-dimensional ii. Goodman Brown played the main character that was a foil to Ms. Hutchinson. III. How are we to use the themes of these stories? a. Analyzing the moral of the stories i. “The Lottery” is...
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...sky. The sun shined over the podium that was dead center stage, which had its traditional red and blue décor all over it. In some towns, the lottery was stretched out over a few days to accommodate large populations but in the town of Freedomville, the small size of three hundred or so citizens meant that the event would only take a half day. The children were the first ones to arrive. They were playing with their stuffed elephants and toy donkeys, some even throwing them at each other. The girls were all dressed in red dresses with white strips while the boys...
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...APA Thesis Statement / Outline Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ and D.H. Lawrence‘s ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’ use personification, characterization, and symbolism, to develop the different themes contained in their short stories. I. Introduction a. A brief summary of the “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson b. A brief summary of the “The Rocking Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence II. Overview of the use of, Personification, Characterization and Symbolism a. “The Rocking Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence i. The personification employed in ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’ has a profound effect on the readers 1. The whispering house is the focus of the theme and plot i. Characterization of Paul and his obsession to gain his Mother’s love and fulfill her wish for more money that eventually leads to his death 1. The money hungry character traits that is passed down from Mother to child 2. Paul’s obsession has sexual overtones between him and his Mother i. Symbolism in developing the plot in “The Rocking-Horse Winner’ 1. The Mother’s insatiable need for wealth symbolizes superiority 2. Materialism replaces Love a. “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson i. Personification is omitted from this story ii. The Characters in “The Lottery” is developed through description 1. Every day people conducting life...
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...Fiction Essay ENGL 102-D21: Literature and Composition 201320 Spring 2013 Kenneth Sellers APA April 8, 2013 My Outline: Fiction Essay My Topic: Compare Contrast My Attitude: Analysis the differences and similarities between the two stories My Purpose: To analyze the differences and similarities between the two stories. My Thesis Statement: In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” D.H. Lawrence’s “ the Rocking-Horse Winner the reader can look into the lives of two families that are in different time but share some similarities. “The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse- Winner have the theme of gambling and through the plot of both stories you will see that the author’s view of winning was very different. “The Lottery” gives you a sense of winning while “The Rocking-Horse Winner” takes you up and down throughout the story. I. Introduction: A. The theme and setting of both stories II. Learning Benefits: To tell the difference between the two writers A. Jackson uses irony B. Lawrence uses emotions to portray everyday life problems III. Social Benefits: A. Able to relate to what’s taking place B. Capture the reader’s attention IV. Spiritual Benefits A. See some good in a bad situation V. Conclusion A. While both Jackson and Lawrence has some similarities in both of their stories. The readers can see how they are very different from each other. Jackson makes the reader believe that there is happiness in the town...
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...Universal Storytelling Elements Movies, such as The Maze Runner, follow an extremely similar chain of events in comparison to other stories of the same genre. The Maze Runner takes the prototype storytelling strategy of dystopian societies, and creates a feel similar to the recognized short story called “The Lottery”. The story begins with a teenage boy arriving at an open field surrounded by walls far too high to reach. This boy instantly found himself at the center of many other boys of the same age who seem to be completely used to people showing up there. While this may seem like a simple story, the detail added to The Maze Running that gives the unique feel is that everybody in the field were also somehow forced into this...
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...Title: Author(s): Publication Details: Source: Document Type: The Carnivalesque in A Midsummer Night's Dream David Wiles Shakespeare and Carnival after Bakhtin. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1998. Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 82. Detroit: Gale, 2004. From Literature Resource Center. Critical essay Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning [(essay date 1998) In the following essay, Wiles examines the festive and carnivalesque elements in A Midsummer Night's Dream. According to the critic, the play was historically part of an "aristocratic carnival" used to celebrate weddings in upper-class society.] Carnival theory did not begin with Bakhtin, and we shall understand Bakhtin's position more clearly if we set it against classical theories of carnival.1 From the Greek world the most important theoretical statement is to be found in Plato: The gods took pity on the human race, born to suffer as it was, and gave it relief in the form of religious festivals to serve as periods of rest from its labours. They gave us as fellow revellers the Muses, with Apollo their leader, and Dionysus, so that men might restore their way of life by sharing feasts with gods.2 This is first a utopian theory, maintaining that carnival restores human beings to an earlier state of being when humans were closer to the divine. And second, it associates carnival with communal order. Plato argues that festive dancing creates bodily order, and thus bodily and...
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