THE LOTTERY

The Lottery

The Lottery

Introduction

Overall Shirley Jackson discusses the movement of the setting, the unusual foreshadowing, and the outermost symbolism in "The Lottery" to give an overall point of view of the story. Even though a small village made seem peaceful, and a good place to raise a family, it is not always what it seems to be. The reader is about to enter a world with ritualistic ceremony and religious orthodoxy in "The Lottery."

Analysis

The Lottery takes place on a clear and sunny summer morning around June 27 in a small village with about three hundred villagers gathering together in the central square for the annual lottery. As a child Shirley Jackson was interested in writing; she won a poetry prize at age twelve, and in high school she keeps a diary to record her writing progress. In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. Despite her busy life as a wife and a mother of four children, she wrote every day on a disciplined schedule. "The Lottery" is one of Jackson's best-known works (Jackson, 1997). In "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson will discusses the movement of the setting, unusual foreshadowing and outermost symbolism to give us an overall point of view from the story.

When one thinks of a lottery, one imagines winning a large sum of money. Shirley Jackson uses the setting in "The Lottery" to foreshadow an ironic ending. The peaceful and tranquil town described in this story has an annual lottery every June 27 early part of 1800's in a small village with 300 people (Jackson, 1997, 456). Setting is to describe time and place of the story. The story occurs "around ten o'clock" (Jackson, 1997, 456). This is an unusual time because in most towns all the adults ...