Fiction Reading Response -- the

Fiction Reading Response -- the Lottery The predominant theme in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery (1948) is the complete normalcy of the day of the town lottery in light of the horror that is unfolding. The author uses many examples to set the tone of normal life surrounding the impending murder of a person selected entirely randomly. The other main theme of the work are the manner in which cultural rituals can persist long after their original purpose has been disproved or completely forgotten in the first place.

The third theme is the difficulty that many people and societies have making changes. The fourth theme is the manner in which ordinary people can be capable of separating their ordinary lives from horrific actions when those actions are encouraged or rewarded by society. Analysis The author goes to great lengths to set up the horrible ending to her story by establishing a sense of normalcy and an everyday quality to the events leading up to the stoning of a randomly selected person.

First, she describes the way that the children of the town behaved as children normally do at ordinary town events such as fairs and parades. She alludes vaguely to some ritual having to do with collecting stones and she details the typical rivalries of childhood in her description of the hording and guarding of smooth round stones by schoolboys.

Likewise, the author describes the way the adult men of the town gather together talking about ordinary things that men often discuss in one another's company: they talked about planting, the weather, taxes, and farming equipment. Meanwhile, their wives share bits of gossip amongst themselves before rejoining their families. There is only a very subtle hint that anything might be wrong with the idyllic scenario: the men merely smile but do not laugh at anything when they are talking.

The author goes further to establish that the day of the lottery is a normal event in the lives of the townspeople. She describes that the man conducting the lottery, Mr. Summers, also conducts the town square dance and the teen club. More specifically, Mr. Summers is described as a person who donates considerable amounts of his time to civic events. That contradiction is eerily similar to the real-life example of the German citizens who stood by blindly as the Nazis persecuted Jews in World War II Germany.

It is also similar to the manner in which many of the concentration camp guards who brutalized and murdered innocent civilians by day maintained perfectly normal home lives and social lives in their non-working time. The black lottery box is a metaphor for the social rituals and cultural practices and beliefs that are no longer valid (or understood in principal) but adhered to religiously nevertheless.

The author explains that the original paraphernalia for the ritual had been lost long ago and that the black lottery box itself has grown shabbier every year and now is discolored, faded, and splintered. However, because the townspeople still object to changing or replacing it no matter how bad its condition, it is still being used. That seems to be an intended parallel to the lottery ritual itself (and to all rituals).

Both the original paraphernalia and the condition of the box probably represent the ancient origin (and modern inapplicability) of most cultural rituals. Along the same lines, the author provides a hint as to the origin of the lottery in the memory of Old Man Warner, who, in response to the suggestion that maybe the lottery should be reconsidered, recounts that "[there] Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns.

There's always been a lottery." The implication is that the ritual began long ago at a time when townspeople believed they had to sacrifice one of their own to ensure a good harvest season.

Old Man Warner then petulantly adds his criticism that it is "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody." That implies that the ritual used to be more solemn and that the relaxed way it is being conducted today already represents too much of a change for anybody who remembers the way the ritual used to be conducted. Conclusion The larger meaning of the story The Lottery is that many human rituals and, more importantly, many of the fundamental beliefs of human.