What Is The Symbolism In The Lottery

Improved Essays
In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, a peculiar ritual occurs every year. Rather than what mundanely the connotation of the lottery, which is conventionally a positive acquiring victory, this type of lottery will have detrimental consequences. By normalizing the lottery, Jackson edifications most of the citizen’s fear. To plenarily understand “The Lottery,” it avails to analyze the elements of theme, characterization, and symbolism.
A reoccurring theme in “The Lottery” is the hazards of blindly following tradition. Each year this village converges to celebrate the lottery. This ritual is blindly followed and the denizens prepare for this tradition and seem as if it's innocuous. This type of lottery contains slips of paper that
…show more content…
The ebony box represents many things, including the tradition of the lottery and the villager’s illogic staunchness to it. This same box has been utilized for many years and needs to be superseded, but the villagers are reluctant. The villagers share the annexation on just a story. No one wants to deviate from the mundane tradition yet they commenced utilizing paper slips in lieu of the woodchips. The villagers want to be staunch to the box but are disloyal to other relics. This proves that there is no logical reason why they should perpetuate to hold to lottery. The lottery is in itself a symbolism of conceptions that have been passed down from generation to generation and accepted unquestioningly. The lottery is tradition that no one has thought to question. The lottery comes with a verbal expression “Lottery in June, corn be heftily ponderous anon.” The allegiance to the lottery is something that will never transmute. The lottery perpetuates because no one has yet to question it. This is an example of the most extreme consequences of when traditions aren’t queried by incipient generations.
In conclusion, through the utilization of theme, characterization, and symbolism Shirley Jackson utilizes these literary contrivances to show the readers the troubles of blindly following traditions. Blindly following traditions could lead to having troubling traditions for generations on forward and the reason why everyone should

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Using characters, symbols, and irony, “The Lottery” shares insight into the human condition; no matter how morally corrupt something might be, people will go along with anything that society or the community deems as the norm. To begin with, the speech and actions of the characters play an important role in the theme of “The Lottery”. What is interesting about the characters in “The Lottery” is that all the characters in the story are presented as normal, small town people. The characters are meant to represent the reader’s neighbors, friends, and family. The characters, much like the reader’s loved ones in real life,…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Lottery: Scapegoating and Maintaining Homogeneousness How a person becomes pauperized by society and customs, this is the example given by Shirley Jackson. The title “The Lottery” gives you some signs of winning, but how a whole story executes and takes place is shocking. Shocking in the sense, it shouldn’t have a meaning to win the lottery. This story takes place due to false belief and tradition.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Archetypes In The Lottery

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The present black box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it…” and that it has been there “even before Old Man Warner” (1). It is an object used to perpetuate tradition. In reality, people use objects like the stones in traditional punishments. Symbols in such stories represents dark elements from cultural traditions. In “The Lottery”, the characters, the lottery tradition, and the material objects are example of those elements.…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The central idea of “The Lottery” is that following the tradition or rules blindly is dangerous. The lottery represents the tradition of the village, and it is passed down from one generation to the next generation. The lottery has been taking place in the village for a long time, and people are completely loyal to it, no matter how illogical or cruel.…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, is a fictional story set in a society of farming and tradition. The lottery, an annual event in the story, is dark and barbaric; this illustrates the negative side of tradition in a seemingly beautiful community. The illusion of a purity and beauty is portrayed in the description of the setting and by the character’s names and dialog. After reading the story a second time it becomes apparent that the scene and characters created a sense of irony to the overlaying horror in the story shown in the plot.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The box represented both the tradition of the village and the villagers idiotic loyalty towards it. The box was falling apart, and nearly all the black was faded off of it but the villagers insisted on keeping it, basing their attachment towards it on a story that it was made from pieces of the original black box that was lost years ago. They felt that the box and other traditions such as the family list, and using the stones were the only way because that’s how it had always been done. Symbolizing peoples illogical following of traditions that they feel need to be kept, but no longer have relevance in society…

    • 806 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The short stories The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Rocking Horse – Winner by D.H. Lawrence have a dark side. Attempting to control the outcome in their lives the character’s irrational behavior demonstrate the loss of winning.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Firstly, Jackson not only uses distinct but also unique style of writing. Her choice of title, themes, flow of words, and application of symbols show why Jackson’s the lottery has survived tides in literature for the past 50 years. The story is still as famous as it were five decades ago. In essence, this book identifies and discusses a great deal some of the features, which makes “the lottery” the most notorious tale ever written by Jackson (21). I will, in this sense, rely on this work when describing several themes presented in Jackson’s the…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She says that the villagers had been using the black box “before… the oldest man in town was born” and that “Mr. Summers spoke… about making a new box, but no one liked to upset… [the] tradition represented by the black box” (Shirley Jackson 46). The villagers are keeping a shabby black box just to uphold tradition when a new box could make the drawing easier or faster, which means they put tradition before…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Shirley Jackson is the author of the short story called “The Lottery.” When reading this story, the reader could possibly believe that they are able to foresee the ending. “The Lottery” takes place in a small town, with a population of about three hundred people, on June 27 at ten in the morning. Jackson provides the reader with visuals that range from the town gathering and getting ready for the lottery to the town kids playing outside and collecting rocks. The importance of this lottery is that is not what it comes off to be, instead it is an act of sacrifice that is believed to be important in order to keep society stable.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Lottery” Analysis Following traditions that have been in effect for even the longest times are not always the right thing to do as society evolves, and can even be quite dangerous especially due to the inherent evil of human nature. This way of thinking is very clear in the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Humans are extremely capable of committing violent acts when they are accepted by society and practiced by tradition. Being this story was written in the post-World War II era, this event was still fresh in Shirley Jacksons mind in the composition of this story.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ritual In The Lottery

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages

    They vaguely remember certain ceremonies, speeches, and songs that were once a part of the lottery. However, their blind devotion to this ritual does not encompass every aspect of it. The villagers are unconcerned with the change from wood chips to paper slips, which seems to be parallel to their change from a deep interest in every part of the ceremony to a lightened approach. The black box demonstrates the ambivalent attitude of the villagers toward keeping the tradition as well. Their devotion to the lottery is exemplified in the box, whose continued use is due to rumors that it contains pieces of the original lottery box.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within the lottery lies another layer of symbolism- the black box used to conduct the ritual. Jackson goes into great description of the box and how the people go to great lengths to preserve but also avoid it and even blantly states the symbolism the box has in relation to the ritual, “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 by the black box,” (290). The multiple layers of symbolism behind this corrupted ceremony all point towards the fear of the townsfolk and the danger behind the…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” we read about a fictional small town which observes other communities both small and larger, throughout a contemporary America. Throughout this story we learn about a ritual which is known as “the lottery.” Throughout this paper I’ll be discussing the climax, main conflict and how this story relates to ‘The Hook’ in a scary and suspenseful way but first starting off with a short summary of the story. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” a classic American short story with a shocking twist ending as well as its insightful interpretation on cultural traditions.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Why is this box symbolic? In history, the box was revealed to be “wood color,” and “had been constructed by the first people who settled down to make villages” (Nebeker 1). The present box was made from some of the original pieces of wood from the first constructed box. Jackson suggests that this box symbolizes “the body of tradition—once oral but now written—which the dead hand of the past codified in religion, mores, government, and the rest of culture, and passed from generation to generation, letting it grow ever more cumbersome, meaningless, and indefensible” (2). The black box represents life and death for every person in the village.…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays