2008
Thessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, “You didn’t give him enough time to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair.”
Until the sentence above, the story makes an impression of a small American town’s happy ritual. A cool weather with the sun shining above; children playing around and making jokes with cheerful laughings; arrival of men to the lottery place and their talkings about daily things such as crops, tractors etc and arrival of women with gossiping: such a normal town expression which a ritual or celebration will probably be happened in. But after Thessie’s shouting at Mr. Summers, reader normally gets frowned and starts to think about what is going to happen in the final of this popular short story: “The Lottery”.
The Lottery is written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, in the post-war and pre-cold war time. When it was published in the New Yorker magazine, Shirley Jackson and the book met with so many negative responses from readers who are in an angry manner which can be quoted (with imagination) like “How can you say that people can kill each other with stones and how can it be possible that everybody does not only let the lucky(!) guy get murdered but also contribute to the show, even their families?”
No matter how negative responses Jackson met, The Lottery is more than popular in our time with its symbolic meanings, quotes of people with intense meanings about rituals, sacrifices and the evilness and hypocrisy of human nature when their eyes were blinded with post-war manners and its painful effects in a growing society.
“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”
The happy and cheerful arrivals of villagers to the place where the lottery is going to be taken turns into a much more different way in the later paragraphs and shows the sacrifice and maybe a relaxation ritual of the town people. Villagers’ hypocrisy and blindness for murdering a villager who is chosen by a lottery and people’s acceptance and their point of view that “this lottery is the one that should be done” are the points Shirley Jackson wants to emphasize in my humble opinion. Old man’s saying that “lottery in june, corn be heavy soon” shows that people believe the sacrifice will bring a more productive cropping and this belief and ritual makes people more encouraged. In addition, a symbolic meaning can be mentioned that the similarity of stones which are collided by children to the shape of the corn pieces. There can also be found more symbolic descriptions such as the names of organizers, Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves etc. Also the writer chooses ordinary or general names for villagers like Warner, Martin, Anderson to emphasize that people are the same in fact and that the ordinary atmosphere of the villagers cannot change that reality too much.
In conclusion, although Jackson confronts very negative responses in the time the story is published, with her expression of mankind’s evilness and hypocrisy in a symbolic style of writing, The Lottery, after its 60 years of being published, still makes great impact and excitement on new generations.
Thessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, “You didn’t give him enough time to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair.”
Until the sentence above, the story makes an impression of a small American town’s happy ritual. A cool weather with the sun shining above; children playing around and making jokes with cheerful laughings; arrival of men to the lottery place and their talkings about daily things such as crops, tractors etc and arrival of women with gossiping: such a normal town expression which a ritual or celebration will probably be happened in. But after Thessie’s shouting at Mr. Summers, reader normally gets frowned and starts to think about what is going to happen in the final of this popular short story: “The Lottery”.
The Lottery is written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, in the post-war and pre-cold war time. When it was published in the New Yorker magazine, Shirley Jackson and the book met with so many negative responses from readers who are in an angry manner which can be quoted (with imagination) like “How can you say that people can kill each other with stones and how can it be possible that everybody does not only let the lucky(!) guy get murdered but also contribute to the show, even their families?”
No matter how negative responses Jackson met, The Lottery is more than popular in our time with its symbolic meanings, quotes of people with intense meanings about rituals, sacrifices and the evilness and hypocrisy of human nature when their eyes were blinded with post-war manners and its painful effects in a growing society.
“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”
The happy and cheerful arrivals of villagers to the place where the lottery is going to be taken turns into a much more different way in the later paragraphs and shows the sacrifice and maybe a relaxation ritual of the town people. Villagers’ hypocrisy and blindness for murdering a villager who is chosen by a lottery and people’s acceptance and their point of view that “this lottery is the one that should be done” are the points Shirley Jackson wants to emphasize in my humble opinion. Old man’s saying that “lottery in june, corn be heavy soon” shows that people believe the sacrifice will bring a more productive cropping and this belief and ritual makes people more encouraged. In addition, a symbolic meaning can be mentioned that the similarity of stones which are collided by children to the shape of the corn pieces. There can also be found more symbolic descriptions such as the names of organizers, Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves etc. Also the writer chooses ordinary or general names for villagers like Warner, Martin, Anderson to emphasize that people are the same in fact and that the ordinary atmosphere of the villagers cannot change that reality too much.
In conclusion, although Jackson confronts very negative responses in the time the story is published, with her expression of mankind’s evilness and hypocrisy in a symbolic style of writing, The Lottery, after its 60 years of being published, still makes great impact and excitement on new generations.
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