What is the summary of the short story The Lottery?

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson that depicts a small town’s annual lottery. A black box full of paper slips is brought to the town square. The town’s residents gather in the town square, and each draws a piece of paper. Bill Hutchison, the head of his household, draws a paper with a black dot on it.

Why was the short story The Lottery banned?

Shirley Jackson received hate mail for writing it, the New Yorker received hate mail (and had many readers cancel their subscriptions) for publishing it, and the government of South Africa banned it nation-wide. The story focuses on an annual sinister lottery within a small (fictional) town.

What is the original purpose of The Lottery short story?

The original purpose of the lottery seems to have been some twisted sort of rain dance ritual. As Old Man Warner explains, the old saying used to exclaim, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (line 122).

What is the main message of the lottery?

The main themes in “The Lottery” are the vulnerability of the individual, the importance of questioning tradition, and the relationship between civilization and violence. The vulnerability of the individual: Given the structure of the annual lottery, each individual townsperson is defenseless against the larger group.

Why did they throw stones at Tessie?

For the final drawing, one slip is placed in the box for each member of the household: Bill, Tessie, and their three children. Each of the five draws a slip, and Tessie gets the marked one. The townspeople pick up the gathered stones and begin throwing them at her as she screams about the injustice of the lottery.

Is the lottery based on a true story?

The story describes a fictional small town in the contemporary United States, which observes an annual rite known as “the lottery”, in which a member of the community is selected by chance. The shocking consequence of being selected in the lottery is revealed only at the end.

What is the main purpose of The Lottery?

The elaborate ritual of the lottery is designed so that all villagers have the same chance of becoming the victim—even children are at risk. Each year, someone new is chosen and killed, and no family is safe. What makes “The Lottery” so chilling is the swiftness with which the villagers turn against the victim.

What is the moral lesson in The Lottery?

In “The Lottery,” the moral lesson or theme is that one should not blindly follow traditions simply because they’re tradition.

Why does Tessie think the lottery is unfair?

Tessie thinks the lottery is unfair because she won. If someone else won, she would not have complained at all. This is an example of situational irony in that the readers do not expect that the winner of the lottery will be killed.

Who threw stones at Tessie?

Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands. A stone hit her [Tessie] on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone” . . . and then they were upon her. A savage mob mentality takes over as the crowd releases its aggressions on Tessie.

What is the moral lesson of the story the lottery?

The moral lessons of “The Lottery,” therefore, are that evil comes of conformity, and that the worst things we do are often things so familiar to us that we do not even trouble to think of them in moral terms or question their value.

What is the purpose of the story the lottery?

The story describes a fictional small town in contemporary America which observes an annual rite known as “the lottery”. The purpose of the lottery is to choose a human sacrificial victim to be stoned to death to ensure the community’s continued well being.

What is the story called “the lottery” all about?

” The Lottery ” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 26, 1948, issue of The New Yorker . The story describes a fictional small town in the contemporary United States, which observes an annual rite known as “the lottery”, in which a member of the community is selected by chance.

What are the symbols in the short story the lottery?

Her short story “The Lottery” is teeming with objects and concepts that don’t show the reader their true meaning without a little digging. Three of the symbols that are very important to the story are the black box, the stones, and the pieces of paper.