Symbolism In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a traditional event that is held once a year in small villages with a massive amount of people to stone the person who picked the paper that has the black dot on it to death. In this short story, Shirley Jackson uses symbolism and themes that are being used to make the story more interesting and enjoyable. Symbolism can be a person, place or thing that symbolizes something. For example, the black dot on the paper means death in the story. Whoever was the one to draw the paper with the black dot was the one to get stoned. The person who chose the paper with the black dot on it was Tessie Hutchinson, and she said, “It isn’t fair.” She thinks that Mr. Summers didn’t give her husband …show more content…
One of the themes in the story is; “Following a crowd can have consequences.” This means when you follow a crowd you are trying to be like them, you don’t know what kind of trouble you’ll get into, like going to jail, or getting killed. When you follow a crowd you are trying to get attention from someone or people, but you don’t know what the consequences are. Like in the lottery, Tessie Hutchinson was the one to get stoned to death because her husband was the one to get the paper with the black dot on it, so her family was the ones that had to redo it and whoever drew the paper with the black dot on it was the one to get stoned, which was Tessie Hutchinson. I think she was the one to get the dot because she was the one opening her mouth that it wasn’t fair that Mr. Summers didn’t give her husband time to choose a blank piece of paper. Another theme in the story is don’t agree to something you don’t know what the prize is. What this means is that if you don’t know what the prize is then why play the lottery, if you know what the prize is and you understand the consequences, then play. For example, when people buy lottery tickets, you know that you will pay a couple of dollars depending on the amount it cost and you expect to win, but you know you are losing money because more than likely you won’t win, everyone’s not a winner. But, like in the lottery you know the

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