shirly jackson's the lottery
When people think of a lottery, some of the first words that pop into their mind are money, luck, and possibilities. However, those words would be contradictory to the lottery spoken of in this story. It becomes accustomed that time changes people's views; however, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery has a plot that invokes a certain small town sentiment that takes a dramatic unexpected climax at the end, overall showing the difficulty it is for people to change their ways towards an otherwise more acceptable conduct and deterring from the customs that they have perceived as being standard. The climax of this fiction story is at the end where a woman in stoned to death based on insular customs of the townspeople, which have been in place since the settlement of the village. Through minor details and affable situations the story will unfold as being pleasant until the harsh ending, which will bring into play how people get so caught up in tradition, they forgo change. The beginning of the story opens up as a pleasant summer morning in a small town while mentioning the lottery as if it was a common event. The plot begins describing the characters and setting to make it more personal, and actions that make it seem as the story wil
Overall the plot of this fiction story conveys the unchanging sentiments of the characters based on an obstinate-minded tradition. In addition to these points, a further part of the plot that relates to the persistence of change is the villagers' talk of other towns abolishing the lottery. To try and stress his point, Old Man Warner associates change to bad times, by saying that giving up the lottery is like going back in time and that it will bring defective luck. The townsfolk are so preset on not causing a change that they ignore all conversation of such an idea. This all plays into how change is difficult to create when everyone is content with their lives, even though it is not as pleasant as it seems. As the men talked about the weather, farming, and taxes, the children played and the women chatted; all this giving a buildup to the commencement of the lottery, while instilling a sense that everything is satisfactory (Jackson 236). He begins by referring to the people of those towns where the lottery has stopped as a, "Pack of crazy fools" and identifying them as being young (Jackson 240). By playing down the lottery as a common and uncomplicated event, and then ending the story with such an extreme finish, the analysis of the turn of events that provoked such an outcome all relates back to the difficulty that people have with change and tradition. Small quirks throughout, such as, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones," and "the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them," when referring to the school children out for the summer; give inexplicable hints about the ending, yet might be missed by the careless reader (Jackson 235). This is tying together that change is commonly related to both youth and foolishness, as seen through the eyes of someone who is supposedly older and wiser. It is a shabby, splintered, and old eyesore and should be updated; however everyone is so set on the tradition of such an aberrant event that they won't even rebuild a new one. This is a minor change when compared to what the lottery represents, yet the people of the village portray it as an important factor because of their different interpretations of what used to take place when people's names were called in previous times. Summers (the conductor of the lottery), begins to talk about replacing the black box, yet not a sole fancies the proposal (Jackson 237). The extreme ending of a woman getting stoned for no real reason emphasizes the point of how some people are so against change that no matter how atrocious something is they conform to the standard that has either been instilled in them or passed down over time.
Common topics in this essay:
Bobby Martin,
Jackson's Lottery,
,
people change,
fiction story,
lottery common,
black box,
difficulty people,
difficulty people change,
|
Acceptance Essays
