How To Write A Literary Analysis On The Lottery By Shirley Jackson
Literary Analysis on Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
Shirley Jackson bewildered the world when her short story “The Lottery” was published in The New Yorker magazine. The piece got a great deal of negative reaction for its shocking and gruesome story. Readers didn’t know what or why Shirley Jackson wrote this piece. She said she wanted to show the story with a “graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.” She wrote a piece about a town that continues the tradition of killing one person each year for no reason other than tradition. The theme is to show how easily a village of friends and family can follow ways of others, even if it is cruel and unusual. In this short story, she displays the theme with the use of irony of setting, situational irony, and verbal irony.
The detailed description in the short story helps to build up an unexpected ending. When the story begins to introduce the setting of the book it reads, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day….” The way the author writes it makes the readers feel like the story is going to take place in a happy environment and something good is going to happen. That may seem the case but as the reader continues to read, the story is actually talking about winning a …show more content…
Hutchinson will not get chosen due to her positive attitude, but the story shows that is not the case at all. Mrs. Hutchinson acts like the drawing is not a big deal when she shows up late saying, “Clean forgot what day it was,” and “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now would you, Joe?.” She acts as if she wants to hurry up the process and get back to doing what she was doing. Mrs. Hutchinson has this attitude that she has nothing to worry about, yet it is her who ends up “winning” the lottery. The situational irony shows that readers may think that the lottery is no big deal, but in fact it leads to a pointless
Shirley Jackson bewildered the world when her short story “The Lottery” was published in The New Yorker magazine. The piece got a great deal of negative reaction for its shocking and gruesome story. Readers didn’t know what or why Shirley Jackson wrote this piece. She said she wanted to show the story with a “graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.” She wrote a piece about a town that continues the tradition of killing one person each year for no reason other than tradition. The theme is to show how easily a village of friends and family can follow ways of others, even if it is cruel and unusual. In this short story, she displays the theme with the use of irony of setting, situational irony, and verbal irony.
The detailed description in the short story helps to build up an unexpected ending. When the story begins to introduce the setting of the book it reads, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day….” The way the author writes it makes the readers feel like the story is going to take place in a happy environment and something good is going to happen. That may seem the case but as the reader continues to read, the story is actually talking about winning a …show more content…
Hutchinson will not get chosen due to her positive attitude, but the story shows that is not the case at all. Mrs. Hutchinson acts like the drawing is not a big deal when she shows up late saying, “Clean forgot what day it was,” and “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now would you, Joe?.” She acts as if she wants to hurry up the process and get back to doing what she was doing. Mrs. Hutchinson has this attitude that she has nothing to worry about, yet it is her who ends up “winning” the lottery. The situational irony shows that readers may think that the lottery is no big deal, but in fact it leads to a pointless