Examples Of Conformity In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

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Conformity
"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, in which the reader is introduced to a village that, on the surface, seems idyllic. That idea is soon put into question as they read the conversations between the people of the village. Even, in the beginning, the actions of the young boys making a stockpile of rocks does not seem threatening. After all, that is what young boys do. However, the adults seem tense and agitated. This leads the reader to wonder is there something not quite right about this gathering on such a lovely June day? Jackson's use of characterizations, theme, and symbolism lead to many subtle undertones in her short story, "The Lottery."
It is clear, in the story, that the men of the village hold all the power. …show more content…
and Mrs. Adams question the lottery, they are trapped by all the old traditions. It is hard to change traditions that are hundreds of years old when the traditions are upheld by fear of reprisal and fear of change. In an article by Helen E. Nebeker she states, Shirley Jackson has raised these lesser themes to one encompassing a comprehensive, compassionate, and fearful understanding of man trapped in the web spun from his own need to explain and control the incomprehensible universe around him, a need no longer answered by the web of old traditions (Nebeker 2). The village people are certainly afraid of change, but still hopeful that what other villages have done, stopping the lottery, will happen to their village.
Jackson emphasizes how old the lottery is in many ways. Her statement, " Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations" (Jackson). The idea that chips of wood had been used suggests a time before paper was available. The people of the village have never known a time in their lives or the lives of their ancestors when the lottery was not done every …show more content…
It is easy to find a different interpretation for almost every line of the story. A lot of them try to dissect and discern what Jackson's meaning was for every line. Jackson's explanation for how the story actually came to be is in her "Biography of a Story". She writes, The idea had come to me while I was pushing my daughter up the hill in her stroller-it was, as I say, a warm morning, and the hill was steep, and beside my daughter the stroller held the day's groceries-and perhaps the effort of that last fifty yards up the hill put an edge to the story; at any rate, I had the idea fairly clearly in my mind when I put my daughter in her playpen and the frozen vegetables in the refrigerator, and writing the story , I found that it went quickly and easily, moving from beginning to end without pause. As a matter of fact, when I read it over later I decided that except for one or two minor corrections, it needed no changes, and the story I finally typed up and sent off to my agent the next day was almost word for word the original draft. I didn't think it was perfect, but I didn't want to fuss with it. It was, I thought, a serious, straightforward story, and I was pleased and a little surprised at the ease with which it had been written. (Hall 1). Her explanation of how she came to write "The Lottery", does not seem to warrant all the interpretations that are written about her story. She obviously did not do any research that
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