Summary:
Through depictions of the nervousness of the adults and the children as well as her descriptions of the object associated with the lottery, Shirley Jackson, in her short story, suggests the violence and stoining that concludes the story.
Through depictions of the nervousness of the adults and the children as well as her descriptions of the object associated with the lottery, Shirley Jackson, in her short story, suggest the violence that concludes the story. As the story begins in a small country town in the mid 1900's, you understand that the town is gathering for an important event. As the story continues you become more and more aware that the event taking place is not something positive that they look forward to. Many of the towns' people let off behavior towards the items and attitudes relating to the lottery as fear and uneasiness. As the story move rapidly through the rapid chain of events you get drawn more and more to the characters nervousness. When the story comes to the abrupt holt after a woman, by the name of Tessie Hutchinson, gets stoned to death. This abrupt ending leads your mind to analyze why the characters were so nervous to theses specific items and attitudes.
In the short story the lottery, Shirley Jackson, uses stationary objects to show nervousness towards the lottery. In the begging of the story you here of the adults gathering in groups, but "they stand together, away from the pile of stones in the corner" showing that these stones have a significance and are something they fear. Once the drawing from the black box begins everyone got tense. This old black box was not something the towns' people looked high upon. You could tell that this box was looked down upon because" the box was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and the box was randomly left places "sometimes it was set on a self in the Martin grocery and left there." The behavior of the crowd when Mr. Summers asked two people to help hold the box the hold crowd was reluctant but after a long hesitation "Mr. martin and his oldest son, Baxter came forward to hold the box steady." This shows how they didn't look forward to holding the box and to how there was something in this box or related to it that frightens them and brings out there nervousness. So the box and the rocks seem to have played the most important role in the characters nervousness leading you to think about how the rocks could be used to scare them.
Jackson also ties in the nervousness of the characters to there reactions to specific events and paraphernalia relating to the lottery. As the children's "school was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them," they begin to nervously await the begging of the lottery. Not only were the children showing nervousness but as the adults stood among them selves telling quite jokes ."..and they smiled rather then laughed." People who are in high tension seem to be more subtle and discreet with there conversation as everyone else is tense as they await the start of the lottery. One direct incident in the story where Jackson directly states the nervousness of a character is when Mr. Adams goes to draw his ticket and "they grin at each one another humorously and nervously." Jackson seems to use one characters nervousness and uneasiness to make the other characters react and have their own tension.
As the story closes and Tessie is killed you start to understand why the town was unsettled and scared. As the objects that are involved get introduce and the tension begins to rise you start to sense that there is a fear related to the ending. As everyone worry's about them selves being chosen you start to think it is a form of violence related to the rocks. Leading us to Tessie being stoned. All the nervousness is wrapped up at the end as all the characters seem to just return to their normal activities awaiting the next years lottery.
This is the complete article, containing 659 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
