Use Of Irony In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the

In this story Clyde Dunbar has a broken leg; this allows him to not participate in the lottery (Jackson 238). This is strange since the prize is death, so a broken leg should not prevent someone from participating. Therefore, though those in the town do not find that he is not required to partake strange the reader does notice the issue with this. Now children tend to be innocent. However, all the children participate in the stoning, including Tessie’s own son (Jackson 242). As the reader can tell the town finds no problem in letting the usually innocent children participate in the lottery. Lastly, Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the lottery. This is due to her views on this event “[o]n the other hand, we meet Tessie Hutchinson, the protagonist, who exhibits a rebellious nature” (Shields 416). As you can see she protested the lottery by arriving late, although she ended up winning the lottery. This shows that even though she rebelled the most, she still won. Overall the dramatic irony in “The Lottery” shows the reader the irony characters do not comprehend such as the sick not participating, the innocent children taking part, and that the character who is late to the lottery wins the

What makes stories special is the ability to portray meaning between the lines. Every author has their own characteristics and spin that they incorporate into each of their pieces. These can include character genre, symbolism, plot structure, and irony. Shirley Jackson writes an ironic story about a small village who partakes in an annual lottery. The village looks forward to this day and moods are always high. However when the reader gets to the end of the short story they are shocked to find the lottery is a drawing for who in the village gets stoned to death. In The Lottery, Jackson surprises her readers by putting an ironic twist at the end of her tale, by filling the story with warming articulation, light hearted characters, but

When writing, authors use various writing techniques and devices to better their story. From onomatopoeia, and similes, to mood and setting, these devices are what make the stories we read astounding. Atmosphere specifically is imperative to a great writing piece as it is prevalent throughout the entire story. From the first three words to the last three words, the reader is focused on the mood they are interpreting from the storyline. In “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, the mood is what makes the story so amazing and helps us understand the theme.

The use of Satire/Irony within literature establishes situations where the unlikelihood of the occurrence of an event will happen. Jackson’s manipulation of his story, The Lottery, provides an unexpected twist to what one may seem to be a normal subject. Northrop Frye’s The Singing School, suggests that all stories are told in either one of four ways: Comedy, Romance, Tragedy or Satire/Irony (Frye 18). The use of Irony and its conventional associations eludes the reader from interpreting a story as a Romance, but instead give the reader a reversed twist. This use of ironic convention in literary work is seen through Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery; the story of Tessie

     In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” irony is an underlying theme used throughout the story. The setting is introduced as a “clear and sunny” day, but ends with the brutal death of a housewife (715). The two people who essentially run the town, Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers, also have ironic names. In addition, the characters and the narrator make ironic statements throughout the story.

    "The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice.  The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens.  On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate.  Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice.  Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about.  Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective

In her story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson manages to catch the readers’ attention and ultimately shock them with an unexpected ending; all of which help her emphasize her critique toward the dark side of human nature and the evil that resides, sometimes, in those who we less expect it from. Jackson uses symbolism throughout the story that helps her set the mood and also makes the readers wonder and analyze the senseless violence and cruelty in their own lives.

Many authors use irony to make their writings more diverse, as well as to intensify the literary elements in the story. Shirley Jackson, writer of “The Lottery”, does this in her stories in order to leave the reader in suspense and confusion with her use of situational irony. She also uses dramatic irony to give the story a grotesque twist and to cause the reader more confusion about the characters’ morals. Verbal irony is used to intensify characterization as well as give the reader an insight into the true beliefs of those in the village. The use of irony in all three forms throughout the story adds an intensity to the development of many literary elements throughout the story.

In stories there will be objects that will constantly be mentioned within the story. This is what is known as Symbolism. Symbolism is the use of object, name, or person to represent an idea. If a name is being use, a name such as autumn can represent the adulthood of a human. Creatures such as an Eagle, represents ‘Freedom’ and ‘America’. Even inanimate objects can represent ideas; the light bulb represents ideas that just sparked into a character’s head.

“Irony – a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated” (“irony”, 2a, dictionary.com) Irony plays an important role in both “The Possibility of Evil”, and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson because it is essential in developing a common theme between the two texts: blindly following tradition can lead to negative consequences. In both stories, Jackson masterfully uses situational irony to make meaningful comments and critiques on society. So much so, that he stories impacted the wider world on a large scale. It’s important to note that if it hadn’t been for her use of situational irony, Jackson may not have been able to provide a truly satisfying twist ending for poor Mrs. Strangeworth in “The Possibility of EVIL”, and she wouldn’t have been unable to shock and frighten readers

can be interpreted in a different way. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short

Throughout the course of human history, people from a variety of cultures have crafted their own cultural, religious, and familial traditions based on communal beliefs. To this day, people from around the world continue to carry out rituals from hundreds of years ago that their ancestors held to be both beneficial and necessary in maintaining a thriving society. These practices, however, have the potential to be malicious and harmful to society. As one of the most famous short stories in American literature, The Lottery provides the reader with a tale about the practices of a small, fictional town that holds an annual lottery each year. Through Shirley Jackson’s use of irony, symbolism, and setting in The Lottery, I found the main theme to

In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, the title itself is ironic. Contrary to what the reader might think from early on in the story, or even form prior knowledge, the “lottery” is not something one would want to win in this case. This story is told in a third person, very limited, omniscient point of view. While the narrator introduces a number of characters and their histories, the narrator never discloses any of the characters thoughts at any time during the story.

“The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about a annual lottery that has been around for many generations where if a person is drawn out of the lottery they are killed due to their beliefs that this ritual it will bring good luck to their crops but some of the believe that they should stop with this but some don’t wanted it to stop. In “The Lottery” uses imagery in the short story to describe the setting and uses irony to contrary the mood of the setting to what the characters are actually doing and finally shows the characterization of the characters. Imagery is words or phrases that appeal to the reader’s senses.( A Glossary of Literary Terms,1)