English 101_OL1 Essay: The Lottery

This essay analyzes Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," focusing on the characters and their representation of humanity's duality. The writer argues that the story highlights the dangers of blindly following tradition and the ironic nature of the villagers' actions. Specific characters like Graves, Summers, and Dickey Delacroix are examined to illustrate this point. The essay concludes that the story serves as a cautionary tale about the potential for seemingly harmless traditions to mask sinister realities.

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THE LOTTERY
Demetrius Jenkins Sr.
Professor Jessica Harkness
201801 English 101_OL1
6 August 2017
Characters Showing Two Sides of Humanity
Introduction
The Lottery written and composed by Shirley Jackson depicts significance of ignoring and
disapproving the traditions which are blindly ad ignorantly followed by the people without any
aim or purpose. It is portrayed by Shirley through senseless murders without any cause which are
partaken by the villagers every years. The story also represents the world which is developed by
her that completely resembles to the world where we live, i.e. a world where people are
following and continuing the ritualized customs and traditions such as acting and practicing high
hostility with each other and decorating the Christmas trees (Jackson 25).
Thesis Statement
The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson portrays a dynamic and complex world which is full of
Ironic events, ugly truths, customized and rigid traditions that are under the veil of evil reality
about people as they blindly and ignorantly follow the tradition. In this paper we will detail about
the notion of people who have faith in a “tradition” but is misapprehending it as if they do not
know about the point of continuing with the lottery.

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Argument
Shirley Jackson has put up various intriguing elements in her story for example with her main
characters in the story for any reader to consider it with deep details. Firstly the characters like
Graves and Summers are the two men in the story who are involved to run the lottery (Tutas 46).
Summer is portrayed as a happy and jovial person but he is also keeps the control and monitors
the box which contains the slips of paper having dot of death over it. Graves, in the story, is
known to be right hand and significant partner of summers but is less talkative as compared to
summers. Still he remains in the minds of the readers as he gets himself introduced in the story.
Though the character does not have enough dialogue and conversation part in the story, Graves is
inevitable similar to the death which awaits the “Lottery’s Winner”. Another name in the story
which is quite less clear but plays a significant role is Dickey Delacroix that comes up in the
starting of story (Nebeker 100). The most interesting and ironic thing regarding Dickey
Delacroix is that villagers utter the name as Dellacroy which is specifically intriguing as
Delacroix in French means “Cross” that implies a religious belief (Nebeker 100). It represents
that it is a type of religion which is incorrectly used because of misunderstanding. In the climax
of story, it was written that “Mrs. Dellacroy had chosen a stone so big that she used both the
hands to pick it up.” This statement showed that Dellacroy (his name being misrepresented) is
carrying a big stone that yielded highest damage to kill.

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Conclusion
Delicate Hints all through the “Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson shows and indicates that
tradition of villagers has turned to become the meaningless customs and rituals which are
followed till present era. It is only due to the seemingly lack of historical evidences that makes
the tradition stronger like a nature’s force and the villagers cannot imagine to rebel or fight
against the same.

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References
Jackson, Shirley. "The lottery." The New Yorker 26 (1948): 25-28.
Nebeker, Helen E. "" The Lottery": Symbolic Tour de Force." American Literature 46.1 (1974):
100-108.
Tutaş, Nazan. "Critical thinking through literature." Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya
Fakültesi Dergisi 46.1 (2006).