Lottery

The Lottery: Dead Customs and Dead People

  Going into this story, the title can lead someone to believe that the plot is going to center around a lottery where the winner takes all the money, gifts, and appraisals. The modern view of the lottery in correlation to when this is written may lead to the interpretation of this story being that the ultimate goal of the lottery in this story are good. Because, relative to the time this was written, a lottery itself was equated with goodness. However, even though the title word choice symbolizes winning and accomplishment, typically positive elements, the   later parts of the story itself is ridden with symbolism conveying death and characters foreshadowing what conveys the fates of the characters.
  Shirley Jackson draws her creative analysis of tradition and overdue customs from the fact that she herself was a free-spirit and had trouble fitting into the “housewife” role. During all of this was a point in time where family and tradition was the center of societal values: the 40’s. This combined with the sense of a specified role leads to Jackson’s attacks. She herself is embodied by the “free spirit” of Tessie Jackson and both are crying “It isn't fair, it isn't right,” at the society that has trapped them in this story.

    The story starts itself out as innocent as possible. The reader is left to suspect nothing with the setting of the story, “The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock. “. The visual given is that of a quiet town that experiences minimal challenge from the outside world, and only a readied reader can see that with such little change leaves the outdated beliefs unchallenged.   This rhetoric is proven further by the introduction of this societies tradition into the story through the “black box”. However, at this point of the story two quotations from key characters introduce the factor of traditions themselves changing along...