Summary Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Words: 987
Pages: 4
Open Document
Today, we can go out and buy a lottery ticket. People buy lottery tickets hoping to win. If you win, you win money. However, in the lottery, the people do not want to win the lottery. If someone wins in the story, they die. The lottery takes place in a village on a warm, sunny, summer day. It was June 27th to be exact. Everyone in the village would pick out of a black box. The black box held a bunch of papers with one paper that has a black dot on it. The problem in the story is the lottery itself. Whoever gets the paper with the black dot, has to draw again with their family. Whoever in the family gets the black dot, gets stoned. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses the black box, the color black in general, and the stones to symbolize the lottery to get readers predicting.
In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses the black box to symbolize the lottery. “When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, Little late today, folks. The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the …show more content…
Everyone in the village had a part of killing the person who was chosen. Even children, who were given stones to throw at their own family or friends. The children collected the stones as if it was a game. Every child in the village was almost as if they were excited about the lottery. “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed” (Jackson 1). The stones represent the lottery as well because that is what is being used to kill the person who gets the black dot. The stones are only mentioned in the beginning and at the end. In the beginning, it talks about how the children in the village collect the stones. In the end, they mention the stones and when they got thrown at the person who was
Show More

Related Documents: Summary Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Character Comparison of “Young Goodman Brown” and the “Lottery” Essay

Character Comparison of “Young Goodman Brown” and the “Lottery” . Mathew Speakman English 102 Professor Katie Robinson July 15, 2012 Thesis Statement: In Nathaniel Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown” and Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery”, we are given a picture of seemingly normal people who are capable of incredible evil. Outline: Opening mood in both stories a. Goodman Brown's sets out on a walk in the forest, but knows that evil awaits him. b. The…

Words 989 - Pages 4

Blindly Following Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

you want to change it? In the short story, "The Lottery", tells of a village where the town conducts a murder in order to have a good harvest. The people gather to conduct a lottery every June where the head of the family-usually male- picks a slip of paper from a black box to know if they will be sacrificed. Then, if they get the black dot their family will be chosen to do another lottery to choose who will get stoned to death. Jackson uses "The Lottery" to warn others of the dangers of blindly following…

Words 1482 - Pages 6

The lottery STUDY GUIDE Essay

Type of Work .......“The Lottery” is a short story in the horror genre. Critics generally consider it one of the finest American short stories of the twentieth century. Date of Publication ......."The Lottery" was published on June 26, 1948, in The New Yorker, a literary magazine. Its shocking ending horrified readers, who deluged the magazine with letters of complaint. Many readers cancelled their subscription to the magazine. After the hubbub subsided, critics realized what an outstanding short…

Words 3132 - Pages 13