The Lottery

It’s a beautiful sunny, June day, the whole town is gathered in Village Square, nervously awaiting for the announcement of who is going to win the lottery. However, the lottery is not what the reader may think it is. The short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, has a very ironic plotline.

In an ironic mode of literature, there must be a sense of chaos to begin the plotline. When the lottery is about to begin, a gigantic crowd forms and the women of the village start to gossip about the lottery. Also young boys collected stones from the ground for stoning the winner of the lottery followed by finding their families. Consequently that is the sense of chaos in the story. After the sense of chaos there will come the major conflict, which is when everyone from the village drew the paper from the black box, while holding on to it apprehensively and quietly. Then the major conflict leads to the loss of sanity. While Tessie’s family is at the village square waiting for the lottery to be done, Tessie pretends to be late by doing all of her work at home such as cleaning dishes first. Another reason why this short story is ironic is because, when Tessie’s husband drew a paper from the black box, she complains that it wasn’t fair because he didn’t have enough time to pick. In addition the reason why Tessie tried to stall the lottery by complaining is because she didn’t understand their carrying on with the tradition, and wanted to change it. Like all ironic stories either have a loss of death or sanity. Tessie is the one who drew the winning card was stoned to death by the villagers.

In the short story “The Lottery” there are many symbols. One symbol is the man who appeared to be Mr. Summers. His last name sounds like he would be a kind and positive man, but in reality he represents the devil. There are many reasons of how he could be the devil. The first reason is that the story said he ran the Halloween program, and the teenage club. However teenagers make the most mistakes in this time period, which could make Mr. Summers responsible for the mistakes since he runs the teenage club. Also he runs the Halloween program. Some people do not commemorate on Halloween because they believe that it associates with the devil which makes Mr. Summers perfect for the job. The last reason why Mr. Summers could be the devil is because he delivers the death sentence for the lottery. Therefore an additional symbol is Mr. Graves and Mrs. Graves. Mr. Graves prepares the slips of paper with Mr. Summers. Then Mrs. Graves tells Tessie to be a good sport when she complains about her husband not having enough time to pick a paper. However, who would be a good sport to a situation of dying? In an actual fact no one would be a good sport. Therefore Mr. Graves and Mrs. Graves could represent Mr. Summers's demons.

The mode of literature of the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is an irony. There are also many hidden symbols in the story. Although the weather was beautiful on June 27th, the lottery day was a very sad and depressing day for the village.