¶ … Lottery" by Shirley Jackson has come to be considered one of the most representative short stories of the American literature, despite the fact that when initially published in the late 1940s in the "New Yorker" failed to receive positive reviews from both the writers' community as well as the readers of the magazine. However, today, its motifs, symbols and the plot are highly appreciated and are a reference point for the American literature of all times.
The success and impact of the short story relies heavily on the symbols and themes the short story uses in order to transmit the message to the audience. The initial reactions were negative as "modern man considers such practices barbaric and, therefore, alien to his civilized behavior. For this reason, many persons were puzzled and shocked by 'The Lottery'" (Bloom, 2001) The plot in itself is not extremely complex, but the way in which the symbols are used by the author give the writing considerable depth and insight into a mentality and a world that reveals intriguing facts about society and the way in which it reacts in a collective manner.
There are several motifs to be taken into account in the short story. One of the main in this category is that of the family. The entire short story focuses on the way in which the lottery affects the families of those involved. More precisely, each year the families...
From among the members of that family, one of them draws the piece of paper marked with a black dot and that person will be the subject of the human sacrifice. The motif of the family is in this case important because the "circle" in which this ceremony takes place has as main element the family and the head of the household especially given the fact that in the first instance of the lottery it is the head of the household that inevitably decides whose family is chosen to provide the human sacrifice (Jackson, 2013).
Another motif of the short story is represented by the rules that are invoked by the people present at the ceremony. In this sense, for instance, at one point during the ceremony of choosing the family, a discussion on the way in which daughters should be accounted for, if in their family with their mother or father, or in that of their husbands, is depicted. This comes to point out two rather significant aspects of the short story. On the one hand, the role of the rules is crucially important for the ceremony, especially seeing the outcome of the lottery that is the loss of the life of one human being. On the other hand, the discussion on the rules is much more important for the…
