The Lottery Summary “ The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson that depicts a small town’s annual lottery. A black box full of paper slips is brought to the town square. The town’s 14 free SAT practice tests on reading comprehension with over SAT critical reading (verbal) questions to help you with your SAT prep Read a plot overview or analysis of the story. See a complete list of the characters in "The Lottery" and in-depth analyses of Tessie Hutchinson, Old Man Warner, and Mr. Summers. Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the story by reading these key quotes
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Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in and it is not in the public domain. Accordingly, we are prohibited from presenting the full text here in our short story collection, but we can present a summary of the story, along with by some study questions, commentary, and explanations. It is important to have some historical context to understand this story and the negative reaction that it generated when it the lottery by shirley jackson essay in the June 26, issue of The New Yorker.
The setting for the story, a gathering in a small rural village, wasn't a fictional construct in America in the summer of The setting was emblematic of "small town America" and many people identified directly with the setting and the gathering depicted.
It was customary at that time for rural community leaders to organize summertime gatherings to draw people together in town centers to socialize and to frequent and support some of the town's business establishments.
It was thought to be good for the businesses and good for the community. These gatherings were usually organized by the city council and featured lotteries with modest cash-prizes to help lure people into their vehicles for the long drive to town. So the scene was instantly recognizable to readers -- especially rural readers -- when the story was published, and they did not like the way that this particular story developed and concluded.
Many interpreted the story as an attack on the values of rural communities and "small town America. Here is a summary of the story, which will be followed by additional commentary. On a warm summer day, villagers gather in a town square to participate in a lottery.
The village is small with about residents, and they are in an excited but anxious mood. We learn that this is an annual event and that some surrounding towns are thinking about abandoning the lottery. Tess Hutchinson makes an undramatic entrance and chats briefly with Mrs. Delacroix, her friend. The night before Mr. Summers, a town leader who officiates the lottery, the lottery by shirley jackson essay, had made paper slips listing all the families with the help of Mr.
Graves subtle name choice? The slips were stored overnight in a safe at the coal company. The villagers start to gather at 10 a. so that they may finish in time for lunch. Children busy themselves collecting stones -- one of those odd details that will later emerge loaded with meaning -- until the proceedings get underway and they are called together by their parents. Summers works down the list the lottery by shirley jackson essay families, summoning the head man of each household.
A male sixteen years or older comes forward and draws a slip of paper. When every family has a slip of paper, Mr. Summers has everyone look at the slip, and we discover that Bill Hutchinson has drawn the one slip with a black spot, the lottery by shirley jackson essay. It's his family that has been chosen, the lottery by shirley jackson essay. Hutchinson begins to protest. With tension mounting, it becomes clear that "winning" this lottery isn't going to be what we expected, and that the "winner" isn't going to walk away with a pile of cash, the lottery by shirley jackson essay.
Once a family is chosen, the the lottery by shirley jackson essay round begins. In this round, each family member, no matter how old or young, must draw a slip of paper. It is Tess Hutchinson who draws the slip with the black circle. While Mrs. Hutchinson protests the unfairness of the situation, each of the villagers picks up a stone -- "And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles" -- and closes in on her.
The story ends with Mrs. Hutchinson being stoned to death while protesting, "It isn't fair, it isn't right. When the story was released it engendered a very strong negative reaction and backlash that manifested itself in subscription cancellations for The lottery by shirley jackson essay New Yorker and large amounts of what could be described as "hate mail" for both the magazine and the author.
Shirley Jackson and the editors at The New Yorker were both surprised by the reaction. Even Jackson's mother was critical of the work. Here is an excerpt from Jackson herself:. One literary critic described the story as "a chilling the lottery by shirley jackson essay of conformity gone the lottery by shirley jackson essay. The people in those communities certainly didn't see themselves that way. I suspect that some folks made simpler inferences about the story that they still found offensive; that the stones represented harmful gossip and insults, that these gatherings were a place where unfounded rumors could be born by chance and inflict real damage on those targeted; as gathering by gathering, a new "target" might become subject to slander earned or unearned.
Jackson kept her intended meaning to herself, believing that it would emerge more clearly with the passage of time. But considering that she was genuinely surprised by the reaction, it seems logical to conclude that she intended to make a commentary on general human nature rather than a specific criticism of rural American communities in the midth century. Personally, I think the questions of permission and participation make for a great discussion or essay about this particular short story.
As small as the gathering is, it is an official event and an act of governance. The American writer and intellectual Henry David Thoreau suggested that you have a moral responsibility for your government; that when the government does something wrong -- say, handing out "free" small-pox infected blankets to Native American Indian tribes -- that it's not right to simply blame the government, the lottery by shirley jackson essay, because by extension that government belongs to you and acts on your behalf.
So the blame belongs to you as well. That is part of the foundation for many of the ideas he advocates in his essay On Civil Disobedience. In The LotteryI see questions regarding the use of force: would you voluntarily participate in an annual lottery like this? Yet the people come every year. I also see questions about permission and consent. Are people willing to tolerate the possibility the lottery by shirley jackson essay bad things happening in their community as long as the odds of it happening to them are low and the cost of speaking out and protesting against it might be high?
What are we willing to trade-off or compromise to be part of a community? How do these questions relate to modern American culture and politics where some people -- an increasing number -- believe that some individual liberty should be sacrificed for the good of the community while others believe that individual liberty and the freedom to make personal choices is the highest consideration.
For those of you that have landed on this page looking for the secret to winning the lottery, I have a few thoughts. Second, there is no magic formula, and the odds of winning are extremely low. So balance your participation modestly, never spend more than you can afford. Enjoy dreaming about what you will do if you win. Lastly, keep in mind, that no matter how often you play and lose, your worst loss is better than Tess Hutchinson's win!
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The Lottery by Shirley The lottery by shirley jackson essay Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in and it is not in the public domain. Here is an excerpt from Jackson herself: 'It had simply never occurred to me that these millions and millions of people might be so far from being uplifted that they would sit down and write me letters I was downright scared to open; of the three-hundred-odd letters that I received that summer I can count only thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were mostly from friends.
Even my mother scolded me: "Dad and I did not care at all for your story in The New Yorker ," she wrote sternly; "it does seem, dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days. Why don't you write something to cheer people up? The Lottery was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Sat, Aug 08, Create a library and add your favorite stories.
Get started by clicking the "Add" button. Add The Lottery to your own personal library. Return to the Shirley Jackson Home Page.
Literary Analysis of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson - Free Essay Sample
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Read a plot overview or analysis of the story. See a complete list of the characters in "The Lottery" and in-depth analyses of Tessie Hutchinson, Old Man Warner, and Mr. Summers. Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the story by reading these key quotes Jan 15, · Last Updated on January 15, , by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" includes a large number of characters for being a short story Ironies In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery; Theme Of Wealth Corruption In The Great Gatsby; Bios Week 5 Lab Exercise Essay; Machiavelli The Prince Rhetorical Analysis; Unit 5 Case Study Hassan Story; The Plymouth And Chesapeake Colonies a Essay; Assignment Task B Essay; Unit Causes and Spread of Infection (Ic 02) Essay
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