conclusion the lottery essay

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Essay

The Lottery , a 1948 short story by Shirley Jackson, developed the themes of adherence to meaningless traditions, parenting and scapegoating. The broad aftermath and the negative responses of the readers who did not see the line between fiction and reality prove that the plot of the short story The Lottery by Jackson reflects the real problems of the modern community.

The plot of the story depicts a two hours lottery in a small town which finishes with a ritualistic death ceremony of stoning the unlucky participant as a sacrifice for ensuring a better harvest. At the beginning of the short story, the village children walk around collecting stones.

Mr. Summers who runs the lottery mixes the slips of paper in a black box, checks if everyone is in place and invites the heads of the families to draw the papers. When it clears out that Bill Hutchinson gets the unlucky slip, his wife Tessie starts protesting saying that her husband had not enough time for making his choice and the lottery is not fair.

Then, each member of the Hutchinsons family selects a slip of paper, and Tessie draws a slip with a black dot on it. Then, the villagers throw their stones into Tessie as a part of their death ritual. The fact that Tessie does not question the rite itself, but protests against the choice of her family emphasizes the idea of adherence to tradition as the major theme of the short story.

The rite is regarded as sacred and the idea of doubting it does not occur to anybody. When Mrs. Adams admits that the ritual of the lottery has already been abandoned in other villages, Warner as the eldest man in this community answers that giving up the rite can cause only troubles. “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves” (Jackson 14).

Justifying the death ritual with the fact that the lottery has been always held in the village previously, Jackson discloses the theme of parenting when in one of the final episodes, a woman puts a stone into a child’s hand, fostering the tradition of violence and lotteries searching for the scapegoats to be stoned.

Regardless of the indignation raising in the readers’ minds, after decoding the symbolic meaning of the depicted lottery rite, everyone can recollect the situations from personal experience and world’s history in which modern the community selects a scapegoat to be discriminated.

For instance, the Nazis scapegoated the Jewish people, proclaiming them the reason of their troubles. Regardless of the current societal progress, modern people frequently scapegoat sexual and ethnical minorities, blaming them for the current moral decay and other social problems. The social phenomenon of scapegoating is rooted deep in public consciousness and tradition according to which the dominating social group looks for the opportunities of self-affirmation and shifting the responsibility for their problems on the others.

Though the ritual of stoning to death has certain historical basis, its meaning is rather symbolical and should not be taken literally by modern readers. The examples of scapegoating the others, including the limited rights of immigrants for finding a good job and the so-called glass ceiling due to which women receive lower salaries than men doing the same job and have lower chances for career promotion clearly represent the phenomenon of scapegoating in modern community.

In other words, appealing to the readers’ feelings, Shirley Jackson provides them with food for thought not limited to the indignation with the medieval rite, but extended to the reappraisal of their own attitudes and behavior.

The aftermath of The Lottery and the readers’ reaction to the short story proves that its plot impressed the readers recognizing it as the reflection of their lives.

After the short story was published in The New Yorker in 1948, the author received hundreds of hostile letters from the readers objecting to the brutal ending of the story. “As Jackson noted in her witty essay Biography of a Story , many of the letters she received that summer were from people who wanted to know whether these lotteries are held and whether they could go there and watch” (Murphy 104).

The debates concerning the actual location of these rites prove that the line between the fiction and reality as perceived by the readers appeared to be unclear. Hypocritically concealing their fear of becoming a scapegoat, not feeling empathy with Tessie Hutchinson who becomes a victim and not having moral strength and common sense to abandon the meaningless rite, the characters of the short story have a strong resemblance to modern readers.

“The contradictions of myth and ideology, the imaginary solutions to real problems, emerge in the specific rituals that ostensibly endorse the myth and ideology” (Hattenhauer 44). Thus, the plot of the short story can be regarded as the exaggerated reflection of the phenomenon of scapegoating as the imaginary solution to the real problems of the modern community.

The readers’ reaction to the short story The Lottery which became the classic of American literature proves that the depicted phenomenon of scapegoating appeals to their feelings as a topical problem of the modern community.

Works Cited

Hattenhauer, Darryl. Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic. State University of New York Press, 2003. Print.

Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery . Mankato: Creative Education, 2008. Print.

Murphy, Bernice. Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Publishers. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 12). "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/

""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." IvyPanda , 12 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.

IvyPanda . (2018) '"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson'. 12 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. ""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.

1. IvyPanda . ""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.

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A Summary and Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Lottery’ is the best-known story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. Published in the New Yorker in 1948 and collected in The Lottery and Other Stories , the story is about a village where an annual lottery is drawn. However, the fate of the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip is only revealed at the end of the story in a dark twist.

‘The Lottery’ forces us to address some unpleasant aspects of human nature, such as people’s obedience to authority and tradition and their willingness to carry out evil acts in the name of superstition.

You can read ‘The Lottery’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Jackson’s story below. You might also be interested in the following articles we have written on other aspects of the story:

‘The Lottery’: key quotes explained

‘The Lottery’: key themes discussed

‘The Lottery’: main symbols

But for the present, let’s start with a brief summary of the plot of the story.

‘The Lottery’: plot summary

The story takes place one morning between ten o’clock and noon on 27 June, in a village somewhere in (presumably) the USA. The year is not stated. The three hundred villagers are gathering to undertake the annual ritual of the lottery, which is always drawn on this date every year. Some of the children of the village are busy making a pile of stones which they closely guard in the corner of the village square.

The lottery is led by a Mr Summers, who has an old black box. Inside the black box, slips of paper have been inserted, all of them blank apart from one. The head of each household, when called up to the box by Mr Summers, has to remove one slip of paper.

When every household has drawn a slip of paper, the drawn slips are opened. It is discovered that Bill Hutchinson has drawn the marked slip of paper, and it is explained that, next, one person from within his family must be chosen. His family comprises five people: himself, his wife Tessie, and their three children, Bill Jr., Nancy, and Dave.

Bill’s wife, Tessie, isn’t happy that her family has been chosen, and calls for the lottery to be redrawn, claiming that her husband wasn’t given enough time to choose his slip of paper. But the lottery continues: now, each of the five members of the Hutchinson household must draw one slip from the black box. One slip will be marked while the others are not.

Each of the Hutchinsons draw out a slip of paper, starting with the youngest of the children. When they have all drawn a slip, they are instructed to open the folded pieces of paper they have drawn. All of them are blank except for Tessie’s, which has a black mark on it which Mr Summers had made with his pencil the night before.

Now, the significance of the pile of stones the children had been making at the beginning of the story becomes clear. Each of the villagers picks up a stone and they advance on Tessie, keen to get the business over with. One of the villagers throws a stone at Tessie’s head. She protests that this isn’t right and isn’t fair, but the villagers proceed to hurl their stones, presumably stoning her to death.

‘The Lottery’: analysis

‘The Lottery’ is set on 27 June, and was published in the 26 June issue of the New Yorker in 1948. Perhaps surprisingly given its status as one of the canonical stories of the twentieth century, the story was initially met with anger and even a fair amount of hate mail from readers, with many cancelling their subscriptions. What was it within the story that touched a collective nerve?

We may scoff at the Carthaginians sacrificing their children to the gods or the Aztecs doing similar, but Jackson’s point is that every age and every culture has its own illogical and even harmful traditions, which are obeyed in the name of ‘tradition’ and in the superstitious belief that they have a beneficial effect.

To give up the lottery would, in the words of Old Man Warner, be the behaviour of ‘crazy fools’, because he is convinced that the lottery is not only beneficial but essential to the success of the village’s crops. People will die if the lottery is not drawn, because the crops will fail and people will starve as a result. It’s much better to people like Old Man Warner that one person be chosen at random (so the process is ‘fair’) and sacrificed for the collective health of the community.

There are obviously many parallels with other stories here, as well as various ethical thought experiments in moral philosophy. The trolley problem is one. A few years after Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ was published, Ray Bradbury wrote a story, ‘ The Flying Machine ’, in which a Chinese emperor decides it is better that one man be killed (in order to keep the secret of the flying machine concealed from China’s enemies) than that the man be spared and his invention fall into the wrong hands and a million people be killed in an enemy invasion.

But what makes the lottery in Jackson’s story even more problematic is that there is no evidence that the stoning of one villager does affects the performance of the village crops. Such magical thinking obviously belongs to religious superstition and a belief in an intervening God who demands a sacrifice in recognition of his greatness before he will allow the crops to flourish and people to thrive.

Indeed, in the realms of American literature, such superstition is likely to put us in mind of a writer from the previous century, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose tales (see ‘ The Minister’s Black Veil ’ for one notable example) often tap into collective superstitions and beliefs among small religious communities in America’s Puritan past.

But even more than Hawthorne, we might compare Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ with a couple of other twentieth-century stories. The first is another ‘lottery’ story and perhaps the most notable precursor to Jackson’s: Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 story ‘ The Lottery in Babylon ’, which describes a lottery which began centuries ago and has been going on ever since. Although this lottery initially began as a way of giving away prizes, it eventually developed so that fines would be given out as well as rewards.

In time, participation in the lottery became not optional but compulsory. The extremes between nice prizes and nasty surprises, as it were, became more pronounced: at one end, a lucky winner might be promoted to a high office in Babylon, while at the other end, they might be killed.

Borges’ story is widely regarded as an allegory for totalitarianism, and it’s worth bearing in mind that it was published during the Second World War. Jackson’s lottery story, of course, was published just three years after the end of the war, when news about the full horrors of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were only beginning to emerge in full.

Hannah Arendt, whose The Origins of Totalitarianism was published three years after ‘The Lottery’, would later coin the phrase ‘ banality of evil ’ to describe figures like Adolf Eichmann who had presided over the Nazi regime. Such men were not inherently evil, but were aimless and thoroughly ordinary individuals who drifted towards tyranny because they sought power and direction in their lives.

What is Jackson’s story if not the tale of decent and ordinary people collectively taking part in a horrific act, the scapegoating of an individual? Jackson’s greatest masterstroke in ‘The Lottery’ is the sketching in of the everyday details, as though we’re eavesdropping on the inhabitants of a Brueghel painting, so that the villagers strike us as both down-to-earth, ordinary people and yet, at the same time, people we believe would be capable of murder simply because they didn’t view it as such.

These are people who clearly know each other well, families whose children have grown up together, yet they are prepared to turn on one of their neighbours simply because the lottery decrees it. And the villagers may breathe a collective sigh of relief when little Dave, the youngest of the Hutchinson children, reveals his slip of paper to be blank, but Jackson leaves us in no doubt that they would have stoned him if he had been the unlucky victim.

And the other story with which a comparative analysis of ‘The Lottery’ might be undertaken is another tale about the idea of the scapegoat : Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1973 story, ‘ The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ’. In Le Guin’s story, the inhabitants of a fictional city, Omelas, enjoy happy and prosperous lives, but only because a child is kept in a state of perpetual suffering somewhere in the city. This miserable child is imprisoned and barely kept alive: the price the inhabitants of Omelas willingly pay for their own bliss.

Or is it? One of the intriguing details of Le Guin’s story is whether we are truly in a magical realm where this one child’s suffering makes everyone else’s joy possible, or whether this is merely – as in Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ – what the townspeople tell themselves .

Just as men like Old Warner cannot even countenance the idea of abandoning the lottery (imagine if the crops failed!), the people of Omelas cannot even entertain the notion that their belief in their scapegoat may be founded on baseless superstition. They’re making the child suffer, in other words, for nothing, just as Tessie Hutchinson is sacrificed for nothing: the crops will fail or flourish regardless. There are no winners in Jackson’s lottery: just three hundred losers.

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The Lottery

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The Lottery Essay: Literary Analysis Example

Check out this essay sample to get more ideas for your The Lottery analysis essay. Here, you’ll find the story’s summary, main theme analysis, and the aftermath explanation. Learn more about the story with our The Lottery essay example’s help!

The Lottery’s Plot

Family theme, the role of traditions, discrimination theme, the lottery’s aftermath, the lottery analysis essay conclusion.

Shirley Jackson wrote several short stories, but she is broadly remembered because of her short story The Lottery. This story is considered one of the best American short stories of the 20th century. It centers around several themes, such as the role of traditions, parenting, and scapegoating.

The story starts with a very peaceful description, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely, and the grass was richly green.” The villagers are gathering to participate in an annual lottery, which will take about 2 hours. It starts around 10 in the morning, with the participants going back to their homes for lunch at around noon.

Despite this initial scene, The Lottery is a horror story. This type of setting is very unusual for this genre. In the second paragraph, the readers learn that the children are the first ones to assemble at the square. The boys are stuffing their pockets with stones, picking the most beautiful and round ones. This type of warning at the beginning of the story is foreshadowing.

Mr. Summers, a man, who represents authority in the short story, carries out a black wooden box. He stirs up the papers inside of it. The black box is ancient, meaning that this lottery tradition continued for a very long time. Until this moment in the story, there is no real indication of what is about to happen. The reader does not know what prize people will be able to win.

Until the lottery starts and everyone takes its turn. A boy from the Hutchinson family draws, and the readers realize that the lottery is not about winning. The head of the family tries to argue with Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves when he gets the results.

The next step in the lottery is a ritual. Every family member of the selected household has to draw a lottery ticket personally. The one who gets a paper with a black dot on it will have to be stoned to death. A wife and a mother, Tessie Hutchinson, is the one who gets the paper with the black dot. At that moment, she starts saying that it is not just. However, it is too late. People already took the stones and started throwing it at her. Even babies have to participate in this ruthless ritual. The story ends with the words, “Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” Even her husband and kids became her executioners. They showed no sympathy for her.

One of the most important themes in The Lottery is the family theme. Tessie Hutchinson’s family members did not demonstrate any loyalty to her, which was gruesome. When Nancy and Bill, her kids, opened their papers, they felt relieved as “both beamed and laughed.” They knew that one of their parents was about to draw the unfortunate ticket and be stoned to death. This attitude shows that in situations like this, an individual cares only about self-preservation. In The Lottery, families do not have an emotional bond, only a social one.

There is another critical aspect of the family theme. It is how gender operates within the community and a family unit. The father is the one who initially draws the slip. This fact shows that men are superior to women in this society.

It is peculiar to see that Tessie Hutchinson is a female character that speaks the most in the story. Nevertheless, she is the one who will be killed by society and her family.

As the readers see in the story, the parents incentivize violence from a very early age. They do not teach kids to rely on their understanding of right and wrong. Children are encouraged to follow traditions blindly. It symbolizes indoctrination and brainwashing that happens even in the modern world.

Another vital issue that Shirley Jackson raised in The Lottery was the role of tradition. A man called Old Man Warner is a conservative force in the story. He explains what the lottery was initially meant for, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon.” Basically, he is talking about a connection between the corn and the lottery. He implies that human sacrifice will better crop growth. The reason why the current generation does it is that they want to follow the tradition. They do it because they always have been doing it. It is also backed up by the authorities. They make sure it happens every year on the same date.

Shirley Jackson shows what can happen if people will do things without examining them.

The black box in the story symbolizes an outdated ritual. Over the years, the rules remained the same with some minor changes.

There are several significant undertones in Shirley Jackson’s critique of the behavior she described. First, is that people should stand up against authority if something is not just. Society should be able to protest to challenge an outdated status quo. Second, in the story, Shirley Jackson criticized democracy. As we see, everyone in the story is happy about the lottery. Even Tessie Hutchinson does not oppose it before it turns against her. So, if the majority wants to do something, it does not automatically make it right. Third, Shirley Jackson criticizes small-town life. She moved to Vermont, the villagers there never accepted her. She expresses that evil can happen even in small, peacefully looking places. Not to repeat the mistakes of Nazis, people should carefully examine their actions.

Shirley Jackson’s story is very applicable to American society. There are many ways in which this short story could be interpreted in today’s world. Mainly because it has an open ending.

One of the ways to interpret it is through the theme of discrimination. Turning a blind eye towards those who are suffering is less complicated. It is more challenging to stand up for their rights. People participate in systemic cruelty towards marginalized communities, animals, each other. When it does not personally affect you, people are more likely to ignore it.

If the readers take the example of Tessie Hutchinson, they will understand one thing clearly. She could protest against the cruelty of the tradition, only when it affected her.

The readers do not see hundreds of those who were stoned before her. There will probably be more people stoned in the future. The villagers are not ready to revisit this ritual and give up on it. Even though the society portrayed in the story is dystopian, there are some similarities with today’s world.

Regardless of the current progress, society remains cruel. Sexual and ethnic minorities are frequently blamed for all societal problems. The phenomenon of scapegoating is rooted deeply in people’s minds. We can connect it with the tradition of blaming the weak for the issues as they do not have a voice.

The mass incarceration of African Americans, profiling, and hate crimes against Muslims after 9/11, mass deportation of immigrants in the United States are all The Lottery modern examples of scapegoating and discrimination. The fact that the story appeared after the Nazis were defeated is also essential. This was a historical example of following the authority unquestionably. Even after it, people are not willing to change. Americans can still show indifference to those affected by violence and unjust treatment. The idyllic setting proves that cruelty can happen anywhere at any given moment in history.

As a society, misfortune is treated as a casual thing. It is very similar to the way the villagers treat the lottery. They simply go ahead with their lives after murdering a person.

The aftermath of The Lottery proves that the story has a lot of similarities with our society. People received it with a lot of criticism as well as praise. Some individuals were wondering if the lottery existed.

The author received letters from the readers after the short story was published in The New Yorker in 1948. Many of them she received that summer were from people who wanted to know if such lotteries existed. They desired to watch them in real life.

This essay on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson aimed to provide a close look at it. We explored some of the central themes and symbols of this story. Nevertheless, there are many more aspects that one can decide to focus on. Undeniably, the short story written by Shirley Jackson is still relevant 70 years later. Now more than ever, people should fight mob mentality, injustice, scapegoating, and reject outdated tradition.

Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic by Hattenhauer, Darryl. State University of New York Press, 2003. Print.
The Lottery by Jackson, Shirley. Mankato: Creative Education, 2008. Print.
Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy by Murphy, Bernice. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Publishers. Print.

How to start an essay on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson?

You can start your essay on The Lottery by telling your audience about the writer, her life, and her works. Talk about the initial response the work got. If you decide to go a different route, you can select a popular tradition and talk about its origins.

What is the problem of the story The Lottery?

The central problem in the story is the blind following of outdated traditions and rituals. Most of the villagers did not even remember why the lottery was held. However, they proceeded with this practice. People are more likely to ignore violence when it is turned against others.

Why was The Lottery banned?

The Union of South Africa banned this story because it seems to be an anti-apartheid story. There is nothing more cruel and unreasonable than discrimination based on the color of skin. The fact that South Africa banned it means that the story has a realistic reflection of this injustice.

What is the original purpose of The Lottery?

The original purpose of the lottery was forgotten. One of the oldest citizens Old Man Warner said that there was a saying, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” It implies that people were sacrificed to better the harvest of corn.

How does The Lottery relate to society?

A lot of traditions are passed from generation to generation without any examination. Even in today’s society, people have problems with questioning authority and protesting. The fact that something has been done for many years and by many people does not make it automatically right.

Why does Tessie think The Lottery is unfair?

Tessie thinks that the lottery is unfair only because she is the one with the black dot on the ticket. She does not want to die and to be stoned. Therefore Tessie realizes that this ritual is unfair and unjust. She did not oppose it before it turned against her.

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Literary Analysis: “The Lottery”, Essay Example

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Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery” (1948) is famous for disturbing readers. One of the reasons that the story incites such a powerful emotional response in the audience is that Jackon’s theme in the story relates to a central experience of being human. This experience is that of being both an individual and a member of collective society. By creating a “normal” world and setting that is also terrifying and horribly evil, Jackson is able to craft an unforgettable modern “fable” that carries a strong and highly significant message. Jackson uses irony throughout the story to convey the message that social conformity taken to an extreme is a most dangerous threat to humanity.

While many readers will readily see that Jackson has combined elements of modern life with primitive ideas and practices, such stoning, fewer readers are probably aware of the way in which irony is employed by Jackson to suggest the deeper conflict between individualism and conformity. For example, Tessie Hutchinson, who becomes the sacrificial victim of the stoning pleads for justice from the townspeople. In other words, she attempts to appeal to their sense of justice and humanity. Instead of responding, the townspeople stone Tessie Hutchinson to death because they have substituted blind obedience to ritual and law for a sense of justice and empathy. this is ironic in that, the townspeople are trying to follow law and custom to preserve their culture and ideals, but they are actually preventing true law and meaningful culture from happening.

The way that this sense of irony connects to the main theme of the story is that it shows how blind obedience to the crowd is often a path to injustice and tragedy. Therefore, it is important for individualism to exist as a counterbalance for social influences. Another way that Jackson uses irony to extend her theme of individuality is by connecting a superstitious ritual to a seemingly modern society. This is done by Jackson to make sure that the reader knows there is no rational reason for the lottery or the stoning of the town’s victims. They are simply following a custom for its own end and they are doing so while being obviously ignorant even of the origin or purpose of their murderous ritual. There is also a subtle implication of irony in the way that Jackson describes the weather and season: ‘flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson). Careful readers will note that the combination of murder and the beautiful day is meant to show that the people of the town are oblivious to nature.

Being oblivious or out of step with nature is a theme that aligns very closely to Jackson’s theme of social conformity. The usual vision of social conformity holds that it is an instinctual, evolutionary behavior for human-beings to group together in societies and follow a “herd” impulse. This vision is generally supported by comparing human nature to animal nature. Jackson turns this around ironically and implies that nature actually excels through individuality and birth, rather than conformity and death. The description of the season and weather is a form of symbolism to express this irony with the spring weather indicating birth and the sunny day symbolizing optimism and affirmation. The symbolic connection is offered almost obviously by Jackson in order to show, by contrast, how shallow and blind the people of the village have actually become.

Not a single person in the village is able to object to the ritual murder of the young girl. This is due not to actual powerlessness on the behalf of the people; it is due plainly to their ignorance and blind obedience to conformity. The people portrayed in the story are so afraid of being killed for “standing out” of the crowd that they each suppress their individuality. When each person suppresses their individual feelings all chance of political objection or rebellion dies. When this happens broken social systems, even ones which are cruel and dehumanizing, are able to continue despite the fact that their continuation provides nothing of merit to society.

In fact, this latter quality: the inability to question tradition of the status-quo is the most ironic construction in the story. By showing that the people in the village have simultaneously forgotten how or why the lottery started in the first place yet defend its ritual as the most significant thing in society, Jackson reaches her highest level of irony in the story. This shows that law is only important to conformists in itself; it does not need to serve any justice or social purpose. Of course, since the whole point of human society is ostensibly to rise out of the meaningless “primitive” state of nature, such blind conformity indicates that society has utterly failed. of course, this irony is even more brutal and more profoundly pronounced in that it results in the collective murder of an innocent child.

It is of utmost importance that readers understand Jackson’s story as being more than a story about primitive superstition. The fact, the story is a warning about the extreme dangers that accompany social conformity. While those who relish the idea of social order and law may fail to see the brilliance of Jackson’s argument, those who have suffered under the pressure of others to conform, blindly, to a belief, agenda, or organization will intuitively understand why it was necessary for Jackson to end her story with the brutal murder of an innocent girl. It was necessary because the danger of blind conformity is that it destroys everything important and meaningful about being human, and sacrifices it to a senseless obedience to tradition and law.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. Classic Shorts.Com; accessed, 9-19-13. http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

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Conclusion Of The Lottery

The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. The story was first published in The New Yorker on June 29, 1948. The story is set in a small town in New England and revolves around a lottery that takes place every year. The Lottery is used to choose who will be sacrificed to the town’s god, which is a stone statue.

The Lottery is conducted by the town’s mayor, who draws names from a black box. The person whose name is drawn is then stoned to death by the other members of the town. The story focuses on the characters’ reactions to the lottery and their views on sacrifice.

The story has been interpreted as a critique of human sacrifice and of the role that tradition plays in society.

Some customs change with time, while others remain static. Tradition is an important part of our lives today, but it was a way of life decades ago. Anyone who voiced an objection to a custom was dealt with severely. In “The Lottery,” the fortunate or unfortunate winner would be stoned to death if he or she were lucky enough to survive the lottery.

The story is set in a small town where everyone knows each other, and their families have all been there for generations. The Lottery was an annual event that took place on the 27th of June. The tradition started many years ago and no one could remember how it began, but they all knew that it was necessary. The lottery was used as a way of choosing who would be sacrificed to ensure a good harvest. The sacrifice had to be someone from each family, so it was fair. The person chosen would be stoned to death by the entire town.

The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. It’s a story about a small town that has a dark secret, and the lengths they go to keep it. The story starts off on a beautiful summer day, with the townspeople gathering for the lottery. The mood is light and festive, and there’s a sense of anticipation in the air. The lottery takes place, and the winner is announced: it’s Tess Hutchinson.

At first, she doesn’t believe it, but soon the reality sets in and she realizes that she’s going to be stoned to death. The story ends with her being killed by her own family members, who are just following tradition.

The Lottery is a story that highlights the dangers of blindly following tradition. It shows how something that seems innocent can turn into something dark and deadly. The story also raises questions about the role of women in society.

The lottery is a tradition that has been passed down for generations, and it’s clear that the townspeople don’t question it. They just go along with it, even though it results in someone being killed every year. The fact that the winner is chosen by chance highlights the arbitrary nature of the tradition. The lottery is a tradition that is no longer relevant or necessary, but the townspeople are afraid to change it. The story ends with a sense of foreboding, as if this is not the last time that someone will be sacrificed in this way.

“Between the post office and the bank, the people of the village began gathering in the square at 10 p.m.” (1) This quote indicates that the lottery is carried out using a well-known technique, and that everyone in town was enthusiastic about it. The individuals felt that offering their children would result in plentiful corn during harvest time.

The lottery happens yearly, and it is unclear when it started. The story tries to show that the lottery is just a way of life in the village, and no one questions it. The villagers go about their merry way, and all is good until one fateful day.

The ritualistic nature of the lottery is also seen in the way that the participants select the slips of paper. The “black box” from which the slips are drawn is essential to the outcome of the event. The box is old and battered, and it is clear that it has been used for many years. This shows that the lottery is a tradition that has been passed down through the generations.

When Tessie Hutchinson is selected as the winner, she protests vociferously. She says that it is not fair, and that her family has already been chosen twice in the past. The other villagers try to calm her down, but she is having none of it. Tessie knows that she is going to be sacrificed, and she does not want to go through with it.

The lottery is a brutal event, and it is clear that the villagers take no pleasure in it. They go through the motions because they feel like they have to, but there is no joy in the process. The whole event is shrouded in an air of dread, and it is clear that the villagers would rather not be there.

At the end of the story, when Tessie Hutchinson is killed, the other villagers seem relieved. They are glad that it is over, and they can go back to their normal lives. The lottery is a dark event, and it is clear that the villagers are not comfortable with it. However, they feel like they have to go through with it because it is tradition.

The lottery is a brutal event, but it is clear that the villagers feel like they have no choice in the matter. The story ends on a note of foreboding, and it is clear that the lottery is an event that the villagers would rather not participate in.

The lottery process begins each morning under a bright sun, which sets up for a pleasant setting. As Jackson describes, “So it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner” (10). The setting of “The Lottery” portrays a pastoral feeling of a gentle summer day. Such beautiful setting for such an occasion again proves the eccentric nature of the tradition.

The lottery occurs in June, also known as the month of flowers. The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing; it is a perfect day for a lottery. The women in the story gossip about their families and men while they wait for the ritual to start. The children play together until their names are called.

When it comes time to draw the slips of paper, Old Man Warner is the first to step up. He has been part of the lottery for seventy-seven years and doesn’t see any reason to stop now. In fact, he takes great pride in being a part of such an event. “Product of a village that had stood on this same ground for 90 years and before that one had also stood here” (Jackson 10). The lottery is a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation.

The black box is brought out and everyone gathers around. The box is old and battered, showing its age and importance. The slips of paper are placed inside, each with a person’s name on it. “Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it. Then he said, ‘All ready?’” (Jackson 11). The tension builds as Mr. Summers prepares to draw the first slip. The whole village watches with baited breath to see who will be the unfortunate soul this year.

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The Lottery: Essay Topics & Samples

The Lottery is one of those stories that can be interpreted in a million different ways. The author brings up many cultural, social, and even political issues for discussion. It is so controversial that the readers were sending hate mails to Jackson!

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

Did you receive a writing assignment on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson? Have no idea where to start? Don’t panic! Sometimes you can find it hard to decide on one topic when there are so many options. This short story also has many Easter eggs to analyze. Custom-Writing.org experts created this list of the best ideas for the essay and The Lottery essay questions to help you out!

💡 Essay Topics
✒️ Essay Samples

💡 The Lottery: Essay Topics

Don’t know where to start your essay on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson? Check out the prompts to help you write a successful paper!

Literary analysis essay on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson . For this task, you would need to work through the main themes of the story . However, to make it easier, you might want to focus on one topic at a time. For instance, write about the role of tradition and how powerful it can be.
How are gender roles represented in the story? Look closer to how the roles are divided in this fictional society. There is violence against women, but it doesn’t seem like they are allowed to play victims. Can you catch a glimpse of sexism in some situations? You might as well draw some parallels with the real world.
How much do traditions affect our lives? The Lottery as an example . In this analysis essay on The Lottery , you are asked to elaborate on the central theme of the story. Shirley Jackson shows tradition to be so strong and powerful in this society that the rational mind can’t even bring others to reason.
Social classes in The Lottery . Are there any characters in the short story that may seem a bit more privileged than the others? All villagers seem to be in the same boat with equal rights. What about Mr. Summers? His name is on the list, and he draws with everybody else, but doesn’t he have more powers?
The psychology of the crowd in the short story . You are asked to write an argumentative essay on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Look for some strong arguments to support the idea. However, there is no need to come up with complicated psychoanalytic theories. Focus on your personal opinion and add some quotes.
Hidden symbols in Shirley Jackson’s story . Here, it would help if you worked on literary analysis for a little bit. There are some apparent symbols, such as the black box and the stones. But how many more can you find? For example, look at the importance of households and write a symbolism essay on The Lottery .
Investigate the phenomenon of hypocrisy in The Lottery . The villagers can be friendly and kind to their neighbors before the ritual begins . However, as soon as they know the results, they immediately turn against “the winner.” Tessie seems like she would do the same, but when she appears to be the chosen one, it doesn’t please her at all.
Tessie Hutchinson as a scapegoat in The Lottery . What can make you think that the main character serves as a scapegoat for the villagers? She might not have a good reputation among them. What do you think drives them to stone her to death? Start a debate on this issue, and don’t forget to use our literature study guide!
The significance of names in Shirley Jackson’s story . You might have noticed the specifics of the main characters’ names. For instance, Mr. Summers fits perfectly in the setting of a beautiful summer day. Mr. Delacroix, in his turn, carries some hidden religious meaning if you look up the translation. Can you find any other meaningful names?
What is the central message of The Lottery ? You might have thought about it after reading the summary of the short story. Well, there is no specific answer because everything depends on your perspective. It may concern social or political issues or whatever you prefer. It is what makes your essay so unique, isn’t it?

✒️ The Lottery: Essay Samples

Below you’ll find a collection of The Lottery essay examples. You are welcome to use them for inspiration!

Point of View in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
The Lottery Analysis: Essay on Shirley Jackson’s Short Story
The Lottery: Literary Analysis
Groupthink Notion in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Gothic Horror in “The Lottery”
Foreshadowing in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Crowd Impersonation in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Gender Equality in Jackson’s “The Lottery”
Herd Behavior in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
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Opponents say discipline is ‘Orwellian,’ ‘re-education’

New York University students who were arrested at a recent anti-Israel encampment must write “reflection” essays as part of their discipline, according to the campus Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.

The university’s Office of Student Conduct issued the punishments last week for students who were arrested April 22 in connection with a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, according to a news release .

The pro-Palestinian group referred to the disciplinary measures as “Orwellian” in the release.

One punishment, a five to six page “reflection paper,” must include “a clear, well-developed response that demonstrates that you have thought about all aspects of the issue/decision/behavior that resulted in your involvement with the Office of Student Conduct,” according to a university instructions sheet .

The instructions sheet states the paper “cannot serve to justify your actions, evaluate the actions of others, or challenge a conduct regulation.”

In the essay, students also must describe their personal values and consider how their actions affected other people, including the university and “society as a whole.” Additionally, the instructions tell students to consider what they need to do to “make things right.”

NYU is requiring other student protesters to write “dozens of writing assignments” through its Ethos Integrity Series Modules , according to the news release. The series is supposed to help students develop “moral reasoning” and “ethical decision-making skills.”

In addition to writing essays, some students were banned from campus and university activities, according to the group.

Middle Eastern studies Professor Sara Pursley, a member of the pro-Palestinian group, criticized the disciplinary measures in the news release.

“Since they can’t write anything justifying their action, students seem to be banned from writing about personal values that might be relevant here, such as a belief in freedom of expression, the responsibility to oppose genocide, or the duty of nonviolent civil disobedience under certain circumstances,” Pursley said. “This seems rather ironic in an essay on integrity.”

On X, conservative Princeton University law Professor Robert George said while he believes students should be disciplined for unlawful activities, NYU’s specific essay requirements are concerning.

“Students who engage in disruption, harassment, or other unlawful activities – no matter the cause they are seeking to advance – should be subject to disciplinary proceedings and appropriate sanctions, but they should not be subjected to thought reform or re-education,” George wrote .

Police in riot gear arrest dozens of NYU students and faculty who refused to leave a makeshift anti-Israel encampment in late April, The Fix reported .

Police said the protesters were arrested for “disorderly conduct” and unlawfully blocking traffic, according to the Washington Square News , NYU’s student newspaper.

MORE: Jewish NYU student kicked out of campus leadership post for opposing Hamas terrorism reinstated

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Episodes from poet’s life are recounted in essays | DON NOBLE

Students at the University of Alabama in the late ’60s and early ’70s will remember James Seay. Tall, slender, with long brown hair, and a black eye patch over his right eye, Seay taught poetry writing and was a presence.

His first book, “Let Not Your Hart,” won the prestigious Wesleyan Prize for poetry in 1970. The verse is luminously accessible, a miracle by today’s standards, and many concern his childhood in Mississippi, in Panola County — just east of the Delta.

More: Novel explores apocalypse and religion in Mississippi | DON NOBLE

Seay wrote of poverty. A poem about fishing for catfish by hand, grabbling in Yokna Bottom, concludes “The well-fed do not wade this low river.”

There are poems of hard work, often amusing and admiring.

“Kelly Dug a Hole” is a hymn of praise to simple tasks done perfectly. “Kelly’s hole was true.” If, one day, the building collapses, the last part to fail will be where Kelly dug.

And there is of course a poem about shopping, with his father, for a glass eye after losing his eye to a lawn mower. The boy knows the salesman “would not find my soft brown eye, not in a thousand leather trays.”

Now, half a century and six volumes of poetry later, James Seay has published a book of 20 essays, “Come! Come! Where? Where?: Essays.”

The first — and the last — speak of a loss even greater than the loss of his eye. Seay and his ex-wife, Lee Smith, lost their son Josh to mental illness and early death at 33.

Several return to the themes of “Let Not Your Hart.” Some recount stories of laboring and as foreman of laborers.

In the ironically titled “Big Boss Man,” set in 1959, he is supervising a crew of Black and white workers constructing a classroom building at Ole Miss. The racial and class currents are almost too complex to relate. The Black workers work with and are separate from the white workers. The blue-collar whites resent Seay, the educated boy and their boss. But he concludes, generously, that the surliest among them is just trying to feed his family.

The essays are scattered through time and space.

There are several accounts of fishing trips, a few of literary commentary, and a fresh essay on some places in Faulkner that are Seay’s own places.

The funniest piece is “Avian Voices: Trying Not To Kill a Mockingbird.” In addition to giving musical pleasure, mockingbirds can be very irritating

One favorite is his 1987 visit or attempted visit to Chekhov’s grave. That day there happened to be a funeral for a Soviet official. The guard was under orders to allow no one else into the cemetery.

Seay explained, pled, that he might never again be in the country. “Nyet.”

Desperate to be admitted, Seay has his translator tell the guard “I am a relative of Chekhov”: “My adult life has been given to the cause of literature.”

And that’s the truth.

Don Noble’s newest book is Alabama Noir, a collection of original stories by Winston Groom, Ace Atkins, Carolyn Haines, Brad Watson, and eleven other Alabama authors.

“Come! Come! Where? Where?: Essays”

Author: James Seay

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2024

Price: $22.95

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Uncategorized › Russian Formalism: An Essay

Russian Formalism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on March 17, 2016 • ( 10 )

Russian Formalism, which emerged around 1915 and flourished in the 1920s, was associated with the OPOJAZ (Society for the Study of Poetic Language) and with the Moscow Linguistic Society (one of the leading figures of which was Roman Jakobson) and Prague Linguistic Circle (established in 1926, with major figures as Boris Eichenbaum and Viktor Shklovsky) The school derives its name from “form”, as these critics studied the form of literary work rather than its content, emphasizing on the “formal devices” such as rhythm, metre, rhyme, metaphor, syntax or narrative technique.

Formalism views literature as a special mode of language and proposes a fundamental opposition between poetic/literary language and the practical/ordinary language. While ordinary language serves the purpose of communication, literary language is self-reflexive, in that it offers readers a special experience by drawing attention to its “formal devices”, which Roman Jakobson calls “literariness’ — that which makes a given work a literary work. Jan Mukarovsky described literariness as consisting in the “maximum of foregrounding of the utterance”, and the primary aim of such foregrounding, as Shklovsky described in his Art as Technique , is to “estrange or “defamiliarize”. Thus literary language is ordinary language deformed and made strange. Literature, by forcing us into a dramatic awareness of language, refreshes our habitual perceptions and renders objects more perceptible.

Though Formalism focused primarily on poetry, later Shklovsky, Todorov and Propp analysed the language of fiction, and the way in which it produced the effect of defamiliarization. They looked at the structure of a narrative and explored how elements like plot and characterization contributed to the narrative’s effect. Propp studied folk narratives () and Shklovsky treated Sterne’s Tristram Shandy , as a novel that parodied earlier conventions of writing.

Jakobson and Todorov were influential in introducing Formalist concepts and methods into French Structuralism. Formalism was strongly opposed by some Marxist critics, proponents of Reader Response theory, Speech Act theory and New Historicism – all reject the view that there is a sharp and definable distinction between ordinary language and literary language.

ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom to benefit from new book of essays

Book cover: Why Books Matter: Honoring Joyce Meskis: Essays on the Past, Present, and Future of Books, Bookselling, and Publishing

CHICAGO — A new book of essays, “Why Books Still Matter,” inspired by the late First Amendment champion Joyce Meskis, has been released this month, with proceeds going to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF).

Meskis, who owned the celebrated independent bookstore Tattered Cover in Denver, was a fierce opponent of book banning, and 16 luminaries in book-related fields and the U.S. Senate have contributed to the book, which is edited by Karl Weber and published by Rivertowns Books .

“The topics of the essays in ‘Why Books Still Matter’ are some of the most important in our country right now, from freedom of speech and censorship to representation so people can see themselves reflected in books and to build empathy,” said ALA President Emily Drabinski. “We are deeply thankful that the proceeds of the book will be donated to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom to champion libraries in this current landscape of increasing book challenges throughout the country.”

The ALA saw a record 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023, a 65 percent increase from 2022, when 2,571 titles were challenged. OIF tracked 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials and resources in 2023. For additional information about book challenges and how to fight them, visit the Unite Against Book Bans website.

Here are a few of the contributing essayists to the book:

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado lauds the mission that Meskis embraced: “The more books we can put in people’s hands, the better the world will be.”
Nick Higgins and Amy Mikel of the Brooklyn Public Library discuss an award-winning program to make banned books available to young people in communities across the country.
Civil liberties attorney Steve Zansberg describes a new way to think about the right to free expression and its role in a democratic society.

About the American Library Association

The American Library Association (ALA) is the foremost national organization providing resources to inspire library and information professionals to transform their communities through essential programs and services. For more than 140 years, the ALA has been the trusted voice for academic, public, school, government, and special libraries, advocating for the profession and the library's role in enhancing learning and ensuring access to information for all. For more information, visit www.ala.org .

Jean Hodges

American Library Association

Communications, Marketing & Media Relations Office

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Book Review: Memoirist Lilly Dancyger’s penetrating essays explore the power of female friendships

This cover image released by Dial Press shows “First Love” by Lilly Dancyger. (Dial Press via AP)

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Who means more to you — your friends or your lovers? In a vivid, thoughtful and nuanced collection of essays, Lilly Dancyger explores the powerful role that female friendships played in her chaotic upbringing marked by her parents’ heroin use and her father’s untimely death when she was only 12.

“First Love: Essays on Friendship” begins with a beautiful paean to her cousin Sabina, who was raped and murdered at age 20 on her way home from a club. As little kids, their older relatives used to call them Snow White and Rose Red after the Grimm’s fairy tale, “two sisters who are not rivals or foils, but simply love each other.”

That simple, uncomplicated love would become the template for a series of subsequent relationships with girls and women that helped her survive her self-destructive adolescence and provided unconditional support as she scrambled to create a new identity as a “hypercompetent” writer, teacher and editor. “It’s true that I’ve never been satisfied with friendships that stay on the surface. That my friends are my family, my truest beloveds, each relationship a world of its own,” she writes in the title essay “First Love.”

The collection stands out not just for its elegant, unadorned writing but also for the way she effortlessly pivots between personal history and spot-on cultural criticism that both comments on and critiques the way that girls and women have been portrayed — and have portrayed themselves — in the media, including on online platforms like Tumblr and Instagram.

This cover image released by Norton shows "This Strange Eventful History" by Claire Messud. (Norton via AP)

For instance, she examines the 1994 Peter Jackson film, “Heavenly Creatures,” based on the true story of two teenage girls who bludgeoned to death one of their mothers. And in the essay “Sad Girls,” about the suicide of a close friend, she analyzes the allure of self-destructive figures like Sylvia Plath and Janis Joplin to a certain type of teen, including herself, who wallows in sadness and wants to make sure “the world knew we were in pain.”

In the last essay, “On Murder Memoirs,” Dancyger considers the runaway popularity of true crime stories as she tries to explain her decision not to attend the trial of the man charged with killing her cousin — even though she was trained as a journalist and wrote a well-regarded book about her late father that relied on investigative reporting. “When I finally sat down to write about Sabina, the story that came out was not about murder at all,” she says. “It was a love story.”

Readers can be thankful that it did.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

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The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin audiobook review – from the civil rights frontline

Law & Order’s Jesse L Martin narrates two powerful essays examining the Black experience in the US, the first in a series marking the author’s centenary year

F irst published in 1963 at the height of the US civil rights movement, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time comprises two astonishing essays examining the Black experience in the United States and the struggle against racial injustice.

The first, My Dungeon Shook, takes the form of a letter to Baldwin’s 14-year-old nephew, and outlines “the root of my dispute with my country … You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.”

The second, Down at the Cross, is a polemic examining the relationship between race and religion, and finds Baldwin reflecting on his Harlem childhood, his encounters with racist police, and a spiritual crisis at the age of 14, which, triggered by his fears of getting drawn into a life of crime, “helped to hurl me into the church”. There, he was filled with anguish “like one of those floods that devastate countries, tearing everything down, tearing children from their parents and lovers from each other”.

The essays are narrated by the Law & Order actor Jesse L Martin, who highlights the rhythmic nature of Baldwin’s prose, and channels his anger and devastation at the unceasing suffering of Black Americans. This audiobook is one of several new recordings of Baldwin’s writing being published over the next few months, to mark the influential author’s centenary year, which also include Go Tell It to the Mountain, Another Country, Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk.

Available via Penguin Audio, 2hr 26min

Further listening

Fire Rush Jacqueline Crooks, Penguin Audio, 11hr 3min Leonie Elliott narrates this coming-of-age story set in the late 1970s about the daughter of a Caribbean immigrant who finds kindred spirits and thrilling new sounds at an underground reggae club.

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Zelensky Visits Embattled North as Russia Presses Broad Assaults

Ukraine said it was slowing Russia’s push near Kharkiv, where the president met with top commanders, but still faced pitched battles in that area and farther south.

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Several people stand outdoors near a wooden table where a woman is sitting.

By Maria Varenikova

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine traveled to the embattled region of Kharkiv on Thursday, meeting with top commanders as their forces fought to slow a new offensive push in the northeast while facing fierce assaults elsewhere on the front line.

The Ukrainian military reported late on Wednesday that it had repelled four ground attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces surged across the border last week and quickly captured a dozen or so villages and about 50 square miles of territory. Russia’s defense ministry did not report any new gains in the Kharkiv region over the past day.

“The situation in the Kharkiv region is generally under control,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Thursday after meeting in Kharkiv with Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces, and other top military commanders. He also visited wounded soldiers in a hospital in the city of Kharkiv.

But he acknowledged that the military challenge in the area “remains extremely difficult,” adding: “We are strengthening our units.”

Military analysts said that the threat to Ukraine was now just as acute, or more, in other regions farther south, as Russia seeks to take advantage of Ukrainian defenses that have been depleted because Kyiv has diverted troops to shore up Kharkiv.

In particular, Russian troops appeared to have launched new assaults on the southern village of Robotyne, one of the few places that Ukraine managed to recapture during its largely failed counteroffensive last summer.

“Our attention is constantly focused on the front line, on all combat zones,” Mr. Zelensky said Wednesday evening, acknowledging that the challenges extended up and down the 600-mile front. “We clearly see how the occupier is trying to distract our forces and make our combat work less concentrated.”

Ukrainian civilians who were evacuated from northern border villages on Thursday said that Russian forces had been fighting in small units that slipped through the forest and into villages. They have popped up unexpectedly on streets in the town of Vovchansk, a village about two dozen miles to the east of Kharkiv city that is now contested between the two armies.

Oleksiy Kharkivskiy, a police officer evacuating civilians, said the northern parts of Vovchansk were now in the sights of Russian tanks, but not fully controlled by the Russian Army, the same state of affairs as several days ago, suggesting that the fighting had slowed in and around the village, though artillery barrages are frequent.

Still, more Russian assaults were reported elsewhere, both to the east of the Kharkiv region and further to the south in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

In Robotyne, Ukrainian officials denied a claim from the Russian defense ministry that its troops had taken full control of the town, and pro-Kremlin military bloggers also denied it, saying that Russian forces controlled only parts of the village.

“Russian information troops periodically organize such provocations,” said Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Southern Defense Forces of Ukraine. “To do this, they organize performances in the combat zone with the installation of the Russian national flag. On the outskirts, for example, they usually die afterward.”

The battalion commander of the 65th Brigade, which is attempting to hold positions at Robotyne, said that the Russian Army had tried to enter the village again. “During last night, Russians, using small groups, entered the village of Robotyne,” said the commander, who uses the call sign Katan. “They were destroyed by our U.A.V.s inside the village.”

His assertions could not be independently verified.

At the same time, Russia’s push to take more territory in the eastern Donetsk region, one of the two regions that make up the Donbas, continued unabated. Fierce fighting is taking place around the town of Chasiv Yar, about six miles west of Bakhmut, and in the area northwest of the town of Avdiivka, which Russia captured in February.

“As I see it, Chasiv Yar is twice harsher than Kupiansk, and Kupiansk is twice harsher than the northern border,” said Pavlo, a soldier fighting in Donbas, who declined to give his last name per military protocol.

“The Kharkiv operation looks a lot like what happened earlier with the village of Ocheretyne,” he said, referring to a village northwest of Avdiivka that Russia captured in late April . “They hit several places, and where they find a crack in the defense, they enter.”

Throughout Wednesday, evacuations of residents in Ukraine’s northeast continued, and people who were fleeing the combat zones reported widespread destruction.

“We spent six days in a basement,” Daria Sorokoletova, 40, an evacuee from Vovchansk, said in a phone interview. “Now there is not a single house on our street anymore — all the houses have burned out, including those on the neighboring street.”

The attacks on northern Kharkiv region are accompanied by speculation that something similar might be coming in Sumy region, further to the northwest and also near the Russian border. Overnight, there was shelling of the region, with 183 explosions along the border area reported by the Sumy region’s military administration.

Many Ukrainian commentators said they believed that Russia’s offensive in the northeast was limited in scope and that it was intended to create panic and confuse the Ukrainian troops in order to break through Kyiv’s defenses further south.

“The main aim of Russian propaganda right now is an attempt to create panic in Kharkiv and Sumy, to convince people that these limited actions in the border area of Kharkiv region are the beginning of an offensive on Kharkiv,” Andriy Kovalenko of the Center for Countering Disinformation told Ukrainian TV RBC.

Andrew E. Kramer and Evelina Riabenko contributed reporting from Kharkiv, and Constant Méheut from Kyiv.

Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia. More about Maria Varenikova

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

The Biden administration is increasingly concerned that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is gathering enough momentum to change the trajectory of the war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to reassure Ukrainians that they could weather an ominous new Russian offensive and count on long-term support from the United States and its European allies.

Russian security agents detained a senior general , widening a purge of the country’s Defense Ministry amid Putin’s broader shake-up of his government .

Frozen Russian Assets: As much as $300 billion in frozen Russian assets is piling up profits and interest income by the day. Now, Ukraine’s allies are considering how to use those gains to aid Kyiv .

Rebuilding Ukrainian Villages: The people of the Kherson region have slowly rebuilt their livelihoods since Ukraine’s military forced out Russian troops. Now they are bracing for another Russian attack .

Ukraine’s Unidentified Dead: Families of some Ukrainian soldiers say they have spent months trying to get official confirmation of their loved ones’ deaths , adding to their anguish.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Shirley Jackson — The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Summary

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Summary

Categories: Shirley Jackson The Lottery

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Words: 404 |

Published: Dec 18, 2018

Words: 404 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

The essay analyzes Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," exploring its deeper themes and the psychological implications of the events within the narrative. The story centers around a small town's annual ritual in which a scapegoat is chosen, stoned to death, and believed to banish the town's evils for the sake of a good harvest. The concept of the scapegoat, a figure onto whom society projects its wrongdoings, is a central theme in the story, drawing parallels to ancient rituals and traditions.

The essay highlights the detrimental effects of such traditions on both the victims and the participants. It discusses how the townspeople, caught up in the ritual, abandon logic and succumb to mob psychology, demonstrating the dark aspects of human nature when individuals act collectively without personal responsibility. This psychological phenomenon, depicted in an extreme form in the story, reflects the unsettling reality of humans' capacity for cruelty when they become part of a herd mentality.

Furthermore, the essay references scholarly works and historical context to delve deeper into the symbolism and cultural significance of "The Lottery," shedding light on the disturbing aspects of tradition, collective behavior, and the consequences of blindly following ritualistic practices.

"The Lottery" - Summary Essay

Works cited.

Biles, J. (1993). Folklore and the Historical Background of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." Midwest Quarterly, 35(3), 261-271.
Coulthard, A. (2016). Ritual and Transgression in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." The Explicator, 74(4), 228-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2016.1249675
Davis, M. S. (2002). Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": Exploring the Horror beneath the Surface. The Midwest Quarterly, 43(2), 124-135.
Dobson, M. J. (2003). Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation. The Explicator, 61(1), 47-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940309597096
Friedman, L. M. (1993). "The Lottery": Tradition's Impact on Human Behavior. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 53(4), 375-385. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01256144
Hyman, S. (1960). Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers.
Oppenheimer, J. (2016). "The Lottery" in a Historical and Cultural Context. In F. Magill (Ed.), Critical Survey of Short Fiction: American Writers (pp. 1247-1253). Salem Press.
Oppenheimer, J. (2017). Shirley Jackson's American Gothic. In S. Summers (Ed.), A Companion to the American Gothic (pp. 297-313). Wiley Blackwell.
Schilb, J., & Clifford, J. (2019). Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers (8th ed.). Bedford/St. Martin's.
Wagner-Martin, L. (1998). Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction (2nd ed.). Twayne Publishers.

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O'Connor, Flannery. 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find.' The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Nina Baym et al., W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 177-186.Jackson, Shirley. 'The Lottery.' The Lottery and Other Stories, [...]

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Written during separate times of war, Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story “The Lottery” and Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” written in 1974, both chillingly demonstrate the concept of the scapegoat. By [...]

Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery,” is saturated with the use of symbolism. Symbolism is practiced to represent something else. It helps construct significance and feeling in a story by causing the reader to make connections [...]

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"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
The broad aftermath and the negative responses of the readers who did not see the line between fiction and reality prove that the plot of the short story The Lottery by Jackson reflects the real problems of the modern community. We will write a custom essay on your topic. The plot of the story depicts a two hours lottery in a small town which ...
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The Lottery: Conclusion of the Essay. To conclude The Lottery literary analysis, the unfolding of the short story reflects how humans mistreat each other. Presumably, it happens in compliance with cultural beliefs and practices. The lottery act undermines human nature. So, individuals seem to condone such evils with less consideration for their ...
A Summary and Analysis of Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'The Lottery' is the best-known story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. Published in the New Yorker in 1948 and collected in The Lottery and Other Stories, the story is about a village where an annual lottery is drawn.However, the fate of the person who draws the 'winning' slip is only revealed at the end of the story in a dark twist.
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Analysis. The morning of June 27th is a sunny, summer day with blooming flowers and green grass. In an unnamed village, the inhabitants gather in the town square at ten o'clock for an event called "the lottery.". In other towns there are so many people that the lottery must be conducted over two days, but in this village there are only ...
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Critical Analysis of a Short Story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
In conclusion, Shirley Jackson wrote "The Lottery" as a means to tell the modern world something they did not wish to hear or believe, that blindly following traditions because it's done by a vast majority of people or its being asked of by someone of high or ultimate authority, does not make it just or right. She wished to raise ...
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As were many of Shirley Jackson's stories, "The Lottery" was first published in the New Yorker and, subsequently, as the title story of The Lottery: or, The Adventures of James Harris in 1949. It may well be the world's most frequently anthologized short story. A modern horror story, it derives its effect from a reversal of….
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Introduction. The short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson discusses several issues affecting people in modern society. The story examines a small village of about three hundred people who gather in a town to participate in a lottery exercise — of being sacrificed to bring good to the community. Residents in some towns already ...
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Shirley Jackson's story, "The Lottery" (1948) is famous for disturbing readers. One of the reasons that the story incites such a powerful emotional response in the audience is that Jackon's theme in the story relates to a central experience of being human. This experience is that of being both an individual and a member of collective ...
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The story was first published in The New Yorker on June 29, 1948. The story is set in a small town in New England and revolves around a lottery that takes place every year. The Lottery is used to choose who will be sacrificed to the town's god, which is a stone statue. The Lottery is conducted by the town's mayor, who draws names from a ...
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The essay analyzes Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," exploring its deeper themes and the psychological implications of the events within the narrative. The story centers around a small town's annual ritual in which a scapegoat is chosen, stoned to death, and believed to banish the town's evils for the sake of a good harvest.
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“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Essay

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A Summary and Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’

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