Literary Analysis Essay On The Lottery

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The Lottery Literary analysis

In the story titled “The Lottery’”, the author, Shirley Jackson, uses many literary devices to help get the theme of the story across. The story is about a town that comes together for a “lottery” that they do every year, but, it is no normal lottery. The theme in this story is portraying people blindly following tradition. Jackson expresses this through the use of symbolism, characterization, irony, and through the setting.

Symbolism is a literary device that is used heavily in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Within the story you see the black box being used as symbolism but you don't quite get what it stands for until the end. It is said in the story that the black box was as old as the oldest man in town and they wanted to get a new one “but no one liked to upset even as much tradition represented by the black box.”( Jackson). In the story whoever got the token paper out of the black box was stoned to death, so , the box symbolized death and dying. This use of symbolism connected to the theme well due to the …show more content…
THe story says that the day of the lottery “ was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day..” it also states that “ the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” (Jackson) This was ironic because of the fact that the people were gathering in the town square to stone one of their neighbors to death on a bright sunny day in June. A reader would expect the setting to be dark, and gloomy to affect the mood. Another ironic moment in the story is how Mrs hutchinson was late for the lottery and ended up being the person who “won” and got stoned. “ Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square..” (Jackson) “.. Clean forgot what day it was”, She said” (Jackson). The reader can identify the literary device irony, because of the weather and through Mrs. Hutchinsons’

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