Shirley Jackson Conformity Essay

Although Jackson’s “The Lottery” is filled with many different outspoken characters, she utilizes characterization to turn an ordinary housewife into the conflicted protagonist. When Tessie Hutchinson is first introduced to the reader as a flat character, Jackson describes her as just an ordinary citizen “Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders” (Jackson, 1948, para.8). As Jackson’s short story progresses the reader is able to notice how the use of attitude, behavior and interaction develops her protagonist into more of a round character “She hesitated for a

Shirley Jackson was born on December 14, 1916 in San Francisco, California. She was the daughter of Leslie Hardie (President of Stecher-Traung Lithograph,Inc.) and Geraldine Bugbee Jackson.

Tessie Hutchinson being one to protest the lottery when her husband wasn’t given enough time to choose, yet he did nothing for her when she was chosen. For the sake of tradition, these people are giving up the lives of their friends and family, their loved ones. Multiple times in the story, it shows that people are eager to finish the lottery and go back about their business. Some examples include a mother wishing her son could draw in the lottery for her if he were of age. No one in this town wants to die themselves, and yet are still laying down the lives of others to continue this twisted tradition.

As the plot of the stories unfolds, the greater influence of violent tensions become evident. In The Lottery, people follow the tradition despite its cruelty and absurdity. Although the ritual of the lottery is brutal, the dwellers of the village do not seem to see how barbaric it is because “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson, 1982, p. 118). Nevertheless, the tensions grow when the lottery begin and every citizen is awaiting for its end. The climatic moment of the story grows when the reader discovers that Tess

While many corruptions in the world are fought against, people, such as Tessie Hutchinson, decide to make the issue unimportant unless it openly involves them. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, citizens of the town pay no mind to the issue at hand, rather than noticing the actual problem. Tessie Hutchinson’s extreme shift in emotion and behavior ties straight from the theme when her family is the so-called lucky family in the lottery.

In “The Lottery,” Tessie Hutchinson states that the lottery is not justifiable and “it isn’t fair, it isn’t right,’ (Jackson, 6). At the end of the story, Mrs. Hutchinson engages herself in rebellious actions by claiming that the lottery is unjust. In consequence, her objection towards the lottery ultimately results in her death. Though Tessie

“The Lottery”’: What it means to be Human Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery” answers the question of what it means to be human by revealing just what it is not. She describes it as a “moral allegory revealing the hidden evil of the human soul” (Charters 290). In the story, we see two main points about man, the human inclination to choose a scapegoat and society’s inability to break with traditions even after the reason for the tradition forgotten. This is a story about how people stand by their traditions even when those traditions are questionable.

The story repeatedly stated that the Lottery has had been a tradition and a tradition ought to remain. Nevertheless, no one mentioned the objective of it and merely performed it routinely. Ironically, the box that obtains the draws and the draw itself has alternated while the “ceremony” remained untouched. It was also pointed out that the black box is actually fraying which represents the antiquated ritual. This symbolizes and the ignorance of people as they see amendments of these objects through time but doesn’t come to the realization of their blindness of following the meaningless lottery. The crowd illustrates ignorance and the mental state of how people count on fluke. They allow this to occur annually as long it is not them that gets drafted. The major issue with this thought is how death would be inevitable if they are one that gets picked since there is always going to be someone that gets picked. And in this case the chosen one, Tessie, bursted out with rage and fear once the grim reaper was petting her on her shoulder which had a black and white contrast with her initial

Tessie Hutchinson is a woman who arrives late for the lottery in town square to maintain an ancient practice of that small town. The story takes place in the town square of a small village in America on summer season. In the short story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson is one of the most shocking and terrifying stories in the fiction. Jackson uses multiple signs, symbols and gestures throughout the story to indicate feelings and suffering that village. Jackson also explores the ritual sacrifice of the villages and about the unfairness of the drawing.

Therefore, savagery is prevalent in the narrative. The soulnessness of characters throughout “The Lottery” can be seen as the threat of death approaches. The survival instinct of individuals overpowers the bond between families as mothers offer their children to have their own lives saved. Tessie Hutchinson, a mother in the family drawn in the story, even attempts to decrease her chances of being drawn by adding her married daughter: “There’s Don and Eva… make them take their chance” (Jackson). The tradition blindly followed in “The Lottery” is a remnant of ancient rituals that are seemingly barbaric, yet have been implemented into this seemingly modern society.

Tessie Hutchinson’s actions demonstrate the theme of the story because she starts off happy, and even joking around while the lottery does not directly impact her life. When her husband, Bill, choses the paper with the black dot on it, she begins to protest. She

At this point in time, not only does Tess get frowned upon because she is late on such an important day, but she is now being judged by her neighbors as someone who should not be a part of their community. Due to the fact, that she comes off as way too eager at the lottery for someone her age, essentially, but it also seems as though she is not very attentive when it comes to the rules of the lottery and its’ tradition that it is trying to enforce. Another example of how Tess stands out is when she tells her husband, Bill Hutchinson, who gets called to go and draw a name to go and, “get up there, Bill” (434). This short statement from Tess ends up causing the people around her to laugh, which essentially makes her stand out from the rest once again. Tess’s eagerness to see the lottery in the beginning, mirrors how desperate she becomes when she trys to get out of the event itself when she ends up getting picked.

In the story, “The Lottery”, the characters are introduced in a carefree way. One character, Tessie Hutchinson, was introduced as a woman who had forgotten an important day in her community and was late to the event. Throughout “The Lottery”, Mrs. Hutchinson displays two main traits. First, Mrs. Hutchinson displays being carefree. Mrs. Hutchinson was very calm when she walked up to the crowd as she said, “‘Clean forgot what day it was’” (Jackson). This shows how common an ordeal the lottery was in their way of life. The lottery did not seem to make anyone super nervous. This shows how Mrs. Hutchinson developed as a character throughout the story. Mrs. Hutchinson was also frightened. When Mr. Hutchinson unfolded his slip of paper Tessie began to scream of unfairness (Jackson). Mrs. Hutchinson shows how frightened she is for her life because she knows that she has a higher chance of dying once her husband is shown with the only special slip of paper. Another character in “The Lottery” is Mr. Summers.Mr. Summers shows two main traits while in the story as well. Mr. Summers is a married man, without children, that “...[has the] time and energy to devote to civic activities”, which makes him responsible in his town(Jackson). This is important to the story because he is the proctor of an age-old tradition that kills people. Mr. Summers almost acts as if “The Lottery” is just like any other community event like a county fair. He acts with no remorse because it is traditional to have the lottery. Mr. Summers also is traditional. As he is setting up for the lottery to begin, he remembers and performs a lot of rituals that occur during this event like using the same black drawing box or calling up each male head of household or making up the family lists after everyone was gathered (Jackson). Mr. Summers is knit picky about what happens as the day moves along because if anything goes wrong, he is responsible and could possibly be disciplined for the mistake. If there was a mistake the result could quite possibly be death because that is the whole purpose of the lottery, to rid the community of a person, by stoning. Therefore, Mr. Summers would not stray from the traditional ways of performing the lottery at all. The

The Shirley Letters are a total of twenty three letters written by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe to her sister named Molly. Louise uses the name “Shirley” as her writing name for these letters. These letters included the life of a woman (Shirley) in the mid eighteen hundreds during the California gold rush. She talks about how wild the miner life was during the time she lived in mining camps. The twenty three letters offer great insight on how life was back then during the gold rush for these miners, especially from a women's perspective being in a male dominated environment.

Foreshadowing and suspense – two crucial plot elements of “The Lottery” – are used to draw reader’s close attention to give more potential to its tragic, ironic ending. Through foreshadowing, Jackson builds suspense towards the reveal of terrible fate that anticipate winner. Many of the obviously innocent details throughout the story foreshadows the violent consequence. In the second paragraph, children stuffing their pockets full of stones and also making a pile of it implies innocent play until the real purpose of the stone becomes reveal at the end of the story. Also, Tessie’s late arrival to the square instantly sets her aside from the other villagers. Her sudden realization of her husband, who was stacking the wood at back-side of home, and kids were gone and additionally, Mr. Summer’s remark – “Thought we were going to have to get on without you”- is mysteriously predictive to Tessie’s fate. (258) The reader can