A Response And Analysys On Shirley Jacksons "The Lottery"

Introduction

Shirley Jackson was the short story writer and novelist of the United States specializing in the genre of horror. Greatly influenced by the writers like Stephen King, Nigel Kneale and Richard Matheson. His best known story is possibly The Lottery ("Lottery", 1948, published in Castilian by Ed Edhasa, 1991), which suggests the existence of a grim and frightening underworld in the small towns of the American deep. The story was published on June 28, 1948 in the magazine “The New Yorker” and led to hundreds of shocked letters from readers.

The macabre story begins with the description of a beautiful early summer day. The people are normal people, the children enjoy the school holidays have just begun their parents talk about the weather, tractors and taxes. Everything is completely normal and familiar. Gradually, however, the reader is increasingly clear that there is nothing to win in this lottery. At the very end, he realizes that it's about a joint murder of an innocent person (Yarmove, pp. 1).

Discussion

“The Lottery” is a factual turn of phrase of Jackson's legitimate opinion about human beings and their evil intentions. The unique belongings for the lottery had been lost a long ago, and the black box rested on the bench had to be placed into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke regularly to the villagers about making a new box, upon hearing the suggestion everybody present there was upset with the new strategy as the tradition of black box had to be kept alive. The anonymous and generic town where it happens "The Lottery" and the macabre twist that gives the story to a ritual as common as the lottery, promote a sense of discomfort that the contemporary reader group violence in the story could be happening in any place and at any time.

The lottery offered an old tradition in the village in which a person in the family will be stoned to death for fun. This person will be chosen through a lottery in the black color box containing the names of all families. The first thing to do is let all the representatives of the families to choose a family name. That will take place until a family is chosen for the final draw. The final draw is the most impressive to them. All family members of the family chosen by lottery will be allowed to take a piece of paper. Whoever receives the paper with a black point which will face the chaotic crowd? He or she will be stoned to death by tradition. That was the fate of Mrs. Hutchinson (Jackson, pp.125).

The news of Shirley Jackson is definitely so-called "new mood" in which the fantastic never materializes, remaining hidden in the maze of the mind. One can also say that they are psychotic texts, texts of madness, where the characters (often very ordinary women) are gradually invaded by the City, through any of its manifestations: ...