Preview

Destroying Morals And Humanity In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
222 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Destroying Morals And Humanity In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson
The story opens on a Sunny warm summers day with children gathering the stones that will be used for the stoning. The children would also participate in the lottery similar to G.R. Stephenson finding on monkey behavior. Generation would continue to grow and die and some would never know the origin nor reason for the lottery but continue to do it without any question. Destroying morals and humanity only seeing the good of the community in ways unexplainable even by the villagers. Deteriorating morals are shown in several cases throughout the story. Civilians wanting the stoning to be finished as if a life matters less than their need to get dinner ready, grabbing stones big and heavy enough to need both hands while screaming “let’s get this

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Many authors usually incorporate a theme in their piece of writing. A theme is basically the subject of talk on what the author’s personal feelings are. In the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson the theme is the danger of blindly following traditions can eventually lead to you being cruel. The following theme with be supported through characterization and setting.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The horror that I felt when looking back upon this story, was only amplified by rereading it, knowing what the ceremony actually would entail. The unsuspecting reader begins the story thrown into a lovely summer seen in a quaint village. Details about children attending school, men and women chatting, lull the reader into contentment. Once the reveal is made, tiny, once insignificant details cast the story in completely new light, an awful one. This contrast between the relive happiness of the beginning, and the grimness at the end heightens the aspect of horror.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through her ability to display the grim reality of a small idealized town, Shirley Jackson unmasks the evil of tradition in “The Lottery.” She repeats that mindless rituals are unacceptable practices. Jackson begins her writing with, “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” (715). This first sentence gives us clues that there is not an extreme amount of emotion; it hints that the style reflects the attitudes of the villagers. The townspeople picture the lottery as normal and have no more emotion towards it than they do the flowers or the warm sunny day. The children begin collecting rocks as they are playing, and the adults…

    • 201 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There have always been horrid traditions that many people blindly follow because they live in a society that practices them. In Shirley Jackson's short story, “The Lottery,” Tessie Hutchison becomes the unlucky victim of a brutal and merciless stoning which questions our contemporary ethical values. Although the setting in “The Lottery” is not specified, we can assume that it is centered in small-town America in a time era resembling present day. There is a lot of evidence that the people in the story are not from a specific culture but represent a generic culture that can be applied to many facts about culture and even to civilizations worldwide. The people of “The Lottery” blindly follow the traditions of their culture, even when it is taking away their morals.…

    • 766 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In James’s dialogue with Daphne, he claims that he will win the lottery because he truly believes in his prediction and it turned out he did win the lottery. In other words, James believes that his true belief of winning the lottery implies that he has knowledge of it.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author of the short story, The Lottery, is Shirley Jackson. In the lottery, the villagers of a small town gather together on the 27th of June for the annual tradition of the town lottery, which is conducted by Mr. Summers. In which, every year they select a random person to be stoned to their death, as they are the winner of the lottery. Emphasizing the theme of the dangers of blindly following traditions. This is shown through characterization, tone and dialogue.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Lastly, another theme in the story is persecution; the villagers persecute each other at random no matter if villagers are innocent or children are at stake. Whenever the lottery is played, each family is in danger. When Tessie Hutchison slip is unfolded, she is marked and no matter what, she is chosen to get stoned to death. Even her own husband prosecutes her and turns his back on her, “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip out of her hand” (295). No one is safe in this tradition and everyone will point a finger, based on race, class and religion.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Does thoughtlessly obeying tradition justify senseless and violent murder? The setting of the story takes place in a small fictional village around the time an annual event dubbed “the lottery” is being conducted, garnering the attention of the entire community. Furthermore, the tone set in the beginning is that of a jovial and positive atmosphere sharply contrasting the disturbing ending and revelation of exactly what “the lottery” is; all the while exploring themes corresponding to the potentially harrowing effects of blindly following tradition, the fear of change and the stagnating effect it can have, and the impersonal randomness of prosecution. To summarize, due to the reasons listed above, society should be more mindful of the traditions that it faithfully upholds.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    (1) When one blindly follows tradition, they become unmindful. In “The Lottery,” the citizens have practiced the ceremony for as long as anyone can remember. They see that sacrificing by stoning is the only way to handle their situation of a small food supply. However, it is obvious that there are more humane ways to handle the situation. This could have been the only way many years ago, but now people only continue it because they blindly follow the tradition.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is nothing less than a powerful story about a society that gathers once per year and holds a lottery. But this is not a lottery with a winner; it is a lottery with a loser. “The Lottery” is a chilling story because it depicts a sense of normalcy among the towns’ people when they randomly decided to kill a neighbor by practically just drawing straws. This story really asks the question, are rituals always a good thing? If rituals are a good or bad thing do we even know why we do it half the time? “The Lottery”, shows us that even though tradition may have been happening for years doesn’t mean that the traditions we choose to follow are beneficial.…

    • 1062 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short stories, “The Lottery” and “Charles”, have notable differences in writing styles. “The Lottery”, is a story about chance. Will you be lucky enough to live for the day? “Charles” is about Laurie, who is starting Kindergarten and wants attention from his parents. In both short stories, the author, Shirley Jackson, described the characters, the themes, and the situations to create an illustration for the reader.…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, yet still, leaves a mark on any person who gets their hands on it today. The story starts out by setting an enjoyable atmosphere at the beginning of summer. The community gathers and the story almost fulfills the reader’s idea of a perfect town activity. However, the story has a sharp twist at the end that leaves the reader in shock. Jackson wrote the story to leave an impact and whom how quickly human nature can change. Shirley Jackson shows the duality of human nature in the characters of the children, Tessie Hutchinson, and Mr. Summers.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    On our planet Earth we are presumed to be the most intelligent species inhabiting this planet. Humans live their lives one tier above animals as we are sophisticated. We have built a foundation on which enables us to live our lives peacefully and stably unlike animals. None the less, we are still animals and we have certain characteristics and tendencies that resemble those of primitive animals such as fighting. Throughout history human beings have fought for what they believe in. As history progressed we have evolved the way we fight and how we fight and what we fight over. These days the way we humans tend to fight is through wars. We wage wars over our beliefs countless times which led us to build great armies in order to win these wars. These soldiers risk their lives fighting so that we as civilians may live in peace. This formula has been recycled throughout history. One would think that a man who is willing to risks his life for safety of his country should be rewarded greatly for his deeds. Which is sadly not the case, what usually happens is these veterans are forgotten once their service is complete. This formula has also been recycled throughout History. Veteran’s in America do not get the respect that they deserve for what they have done. The unemployment rate regarding veteran’s has been at an all-time high and there seems to be a lack of effort to change this.…

    • 1371 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Change is the act or instance of making or becoming different. Everyone and everything changes all the time. As Benjamin Disraeli once said “Change is inevitable. Change is Constant.” Change in society today can be viewed as either good or bad depending on the situation.…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many people are greatly affected by selfishness every day. It affects people in many different ways because it brings out anger and hatred. The act of selfishness can lead to careless and cruel behaviors.…

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays