literary analysis essay the lottery

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Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 28, 2021

As were many of Shirley Jackson’s stories, “The Lottery” was first published in the New Yorker  and, subsequently, as the title story of The Lottery: or, The Adventures of James Harris in 1949. It may well be the world’s most frequently anthologized short story. A modern horror story, it derives its effect from a reversal of the readers’ expectations, already established by the ordinary setting of a warm June day in a rural community. Readers, lulled into this false summer complacency, begin to feel horror, their moods changing with the narrator’s careful use of evidence and suspense, until the full realization of the appalling ritual murder bursts almost unbearably on them.

The story opens innocently enough, as the townspeople gather for an unidentified annual event connected to the harvest. The use of names initially seems to bolster the friendliness of the gathering; we feel we know these people as, one by one, their names are called in alphabetical order. In retrospect, however, the names of the male lottery organizers—Summer and Graves—provide us with clues to the transition from life to death. Tessie, the soon-to-be-victim housewife, may allude to another bucolic Tess (in Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles ), whose promising beginnings transformed into gore and death at the hands of men.

Shirley Jackson/Erich Hartmann

The scholar and critic Linda Wagner-Martin observes that only recently have readers noticed the import of the sacrificial victim’s gender: In the traditional patriarchal system that values men and children, mothers are devalued once they have fulfilled their childbearing roles. Tessie, late to the gathering because her arms were plunged to the elbow in dishwater, seems inconsequential, even irritating, at first. Only as everyone in the town turns against her— children, men, other women invested in the system that sustains them—does the reader become aware that this is a ritual stoning of a scapegoat who can depend on no one: not her daughter, not her husband, not even her little boy, Davy, who picks up an extraordinarily large rock to throw at her.

No reader can finish this story without contemplating the violence and inhumanity that Jackson intended it to portray. In the irony of its depiction lies the horror of this classic tale and, one hopes, a careful reevaluation of social codes and meaningless rituals.

Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s Stories

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-authors-voice/a-m-homes-reads-shirley-jackson-the-lottery

BIBLIOGRAPHY Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery: or, The Adventures of James Harris. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1949. Wagner-Martin, Linda. “The Lottery.” In Reference Guide to Short Fiction, edited by Noelle Watson, 783–784. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994.

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Literary Analysis: “The Lottery”, Essay Example

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Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery” (1948) is famous for disturbing readers. One of the reasons that the story incites such a powerful emotional response in the audience is that Jackon’s theme in the story relates to a central experience of being human. This experience is that of being both an individual and a member of collective society. By creating a “normal” world and setting that is also terrifying and horribly evil, Jackson is able to craft an unforgettable modern “fable” that carries a strong and highly significant message. Jackson uses irony throughout the story to convey the message that social conformity taken to an extreme is a most dangerous threat to humanity.

While many readers will readily see that Jackson has combined elements of modern life with primitive ideas and practices, such stoning, fewer readers are probably aware of the way in which irony is employed by Jackson to suggest the deeper conflict between individualism and conformity. For example, Tessie Hutchinson, who becomes the sacrificial victim of the stoning pleads for justice from the townspeople. In other words, she attempts to appeal to their sense of justice and humanity. Instead of responding, the townspeople stone Tessie Hutchinson to death because they have substituted blind obedience to ritual and law for a sense of justice and empathy. this is ironic in that, the townspeople are trying to follow law and custom to preserve their culture and ideals, but they are actually preventing true law and meaningful culture from happening.

The way that this sense of irony connects to the main theme of the story is that it shows how blind obedience to the crowd is often a path to injustice and tragedy. Therefore, it is important for individualism to exist as a counterbalance for social influences. Another way that Jackson uses irony to extend her theme of individuality is by connecting a superstitious ritual to a seemingly modern society. This is done by Jackson to make sure that the reader knows there is no rational reason for the lottery or the stoning of the town’s victims. They are simply following a custom for its own end and they are doing so while being obviously ignorant even of the origin or purpose of their murderous ritual. There is also a subtle implication of irony in the way that Jackson describes the weather and season: ‘flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson). Careful readers will note that the combination of murder and the beautiful day is meant to show that the people of the town are oblivious to nature.

Being oblivious or out of step with nature is a theme that aligns very closely to Jackson’s theme of social conformity. The usual vision of social conformity holds that it is an instinctual, evolutionary behavior for human-beings to group together in societies and follow a “herd” impulse. This vision is generally supported by comparing human nature to animal nature. Jackson turns this around ironically and implies that nature actually excels through individuality and birth, rather than conformity and death. The description of the season and weather is a form of symbolism to express this irony with the spring weather indicating birth and the sunny day symbolizing optimism and affirmation. The symbolic connection is offered almost obviously by Jackson in order to show, by contrast, how shallow and blind the people of the village have actually become.

Not a single person in the village is able to object to the ritual murder of the young girl. This is due not to actual powerlessness on the behalf of the people; it is due plainly to their ignorance and blind obedience to conformity. The people portrayed in the story are so afraid of being killed for “standing out” of the crowd that they each suppress their individuality. When each person suppresses their individual feelings all chance of political objection or rebellion dies. When this happens broken social systems, even ones which are cruel and dehumanizing, are able to continue despite the fact that their continuation provides nothing of merit to society.

In fact, this latter quality: the inability to question tradition of the status-quo is the most ironic construction in the story. By showing that the people in the village have simultaneously forgotten how or why the lottery started in the first place yet defend its ritual as the most significant thing in society, Jackson reaches her highest level of irony in the story. This shows that law is only important to conformists in itself; it does not need to serve any justice or social purpose. Of course, since the whole point of human society is ostensibly to rise out of the meaningless “primitive” state of nature, such blind conformity indicates that society has utterly failed. of course, this irony is even more brutal and more profoundly pronounced in that it results in the collective murder of an innocent child.

It is of utmost importance that readers understand Jackson’s story as being more than a story about primitive superstition. The fact, the story is a warning about the extreme dangers that accompany social conformity. While those who relish the idea of social order and law may fail to see the brilliance of Jackson’s argument, those who have suffered under the pressure of others to conform, blindly, to a belief, agenda, or organization will intuitively understand why it was necessary for Jackson to end her story with the brutal murder of an innocent girl. It was necessary because the danger of blind conformity is that it destroys everything important and meaningful about being human, and sacrifices it to a senseless obedience to tradition and law.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. Classic Shorts.Com; accessed, 9-19-13. http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

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The Lottery Analysis: Essay on Shirley Jackson’s Short Story

The lottery: analysis essay introduction, the lottery analysis, the lottery: conclusion of the essay.

Are you about to write The Lottery summary essay and looking for examples? Then check out this The Lottery analysis essay sample! Here, you’ll find information on the setting, themes, and other aspects of the story.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is one of the most recognized short pieces of literature in the US. First published in 1948, it quickly gained popularity due to various psychological aspects of the story. The following analysis of The Lottery is going to talk about it in detail.

The Lottery in the story is an annual event. Family members and friends randomly select a person in the city to be stoned to death. Long ago, it was to ensure that future harvests would bring a sufficient amount of food. At the time of the story, no one remembers this reason. The whole atmosphere of the ‘normality’ of such an event created by the author is very persuasive. Every person in the village is confident that this kind of practice is natural and cheerfully welcomes it.

Lottery arrangements start the night before the event. Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves draw up a list of all of the big families in town. They plan a set of lottery tickets, one per family. All of these tickets are blank except for one marked with a black dot. The slips are folded and put in a wooden box, which Mr. Summers keeps in his office.

Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, shows the many sins committed by humanity. It takes place in a remote American village. In this setting, traditions and customs dominate the local population.

‘Death’ characterizes the final destiny of all the activities described in this short story. It is viewed as a redeemer of many atrocities done against one another by individuals. The Lottery analysis essay introduces characterization methods and the setting.

Actions and the general behavior of people are among the most remarkable characterization methods. Although this book does not contain many of them, the few acts that affect the characters define it.

For example, the story introduces Mrs. Delacroix as a determined lady with a quick temper. Her action of picking a big stone expresses it. The rock is “so big that she had to pick it out in frustration with two hands ….” (Shirley 76).

Events of the story show that Jackson condemns humankind’s hypocrisy and evil nature. “They greeted each other and exchanged bits of gossip … handling each other without a flinch of sympathy …” is written in the story (Shirley 281). The reader expects the lottery to be advantageous in some way to the villagers. Nothing of value is achieved, though, in the form of such practice.

Jackson depicts horrific and terrible things done in an ordinary manner that suggests underlying human evilness. Every evil deed in the book is done in a friendly and relaxed setting. Thus, it becomes clear that humans are deceiving in their nature.

The presentation of the whole story does not look menacing until near its end. The author seems to foreshadow this threat, as illustrated by Mr. Summers, who is in charge of the lottery, and his associate Mr. Graves. In this short story, the description makes Mr. Summers seem to be a respected member of the local society. He organizes and coordinates various social events.

Mr. Summers has a modest character but a hazardous one. As Jackson (282) says, “Mr. Summers was very good at all this ….. with one hand carelessly resting on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.” These practices may seem ordinary regarding village norms. For the reader, they represent a high degree of violation of human rights.

The principal characters used in the short story represent the atmosphere of the actual events. For example, the name “Summers” symbolizes the essential theme of the plot and the eventual outcome of the entire events (Marshall 3).

Additionally, the name of Mr. Summers’ friend, Mr. Graves, his assistant in lottery events, symbolizes the wickedness of ordinary villagers. So, the author uses such names to portray the idea of such absurdity.

In the short story, the lottery represents the weak and deceitful nature of humans. This act has been a practice for many years in this area. And yet, no one seems to doubt its detrimental effect on the local population. “There’s always been a lottery, and no one has been nervous about it…everyone goes on with it…” This excerpt shows how hypocritical the people in the village have become.

According to Hyman (35), despite depriving humans of their rights to life, no one expressed fear or disgust at the act. The kind of evil and lack of morality portrayed goes beyond human brutality. Everything is done in a calm and consensual manner.

Marshall (3) suggests such an atmosphere is a real reflection of how people are profoundly hypocritic and wicked. It concerns even Mrs. Hutchinson, who comes out to protest and rebel against the lottery. Unsurprisingly, she became the victim of the lottery act the same day she protested against it. Mrs. Hutchinson does not speak against the mistreatment of her fellow villagers before she is chosen to be sacrificed (Hyman 46). Such an event shows that all acts of defiance against the lottery are quickly hindered. Everything goes on as usual.

From our analysis of The Lottery, we can see the prominent theme. A person starts to oppose those “cultural norms” and laws only when they hurt them personally. In particular, despite our seemingly friendly appearance, Mrs. Hutchinson’s death marks the continuity of the eternal evil nature of humankind.

To conclude The Lottery literary analysis, the unfolding of the short story reflects how humans mistreat each other. Presumably, it happens in compliance with cultural beliefs and practices. The lottery act undermines human nature. So, individuals seem to condone such evils with less consideration for their negative impacts.

At the end of the story, the “light of hope” for liberalization represented by Mrs. Hutchinson dies. That proves the existence of the corrupt and evil nature of man. Generally speaking, the short story describes the social malpractices that society conducts toward each other as if they were ordinary occurrences.

What is the goal of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson literary analysis?

The goal of The Lottery literary analysis essay is to characterize methods and the setting. But the event of the story should not be the only focus. Another critical objective is analyzing the story in a broader context of human psychology.

How do you write a literary analysis essay on The Lottery?

Start The Lottery critical analysis by describing the book and the author’s background stories. Make sure to include every prominent character in your essay, as well as their personality traits and behaviors. Finish your literary analysis of The Lottery by concluding the main idea behind the story.

What was Shirley Jackson’s message in The Lottery?

Shirley Jackson tries to provide us with some light on the danger of following traditions blindly. In the book, the entire village meets on the town square to compete in the annual lottery of death. Nobody questions its existence, no matter how abusive and cruel it is.

Why was Mrs. Hutchinson late for the lottery?

Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the lottery because she forgot what day it was. Other villagers cannot help but notice it and come to quick conclusions. They immediately start thinking of her as someone different and even threatening. Even her husband, Bill Hutchinson, accepts her fate.

What do the stones symbolize in The Lottery?

In The Lottery, the stones symbolize the execution method depicted in the Bible. There, people used the same things to execute the perpetrators of law and tradition. The stones show the violent capabilities of the crowd that is capable of such horrible actions.

• Hyman, Stanley. The Presentation of Evil in “The Lottery”. 2000, New Jersey: Bantam Publishing Co.
• Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. 1948, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers.
• Marshall, Garry. Analysis of “The Lottery” a Short Story by Shirley Jackson. 2003, New York: Lori Voth Publishers.

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The Lottery

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Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Shirley Jackson's The Lottery . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Lottery: Introduction

The lottery: plot summary, the lottery: detailed summary & analysis, the lottery: themes, the lottery: quotes, the lottery: characters, the lottery: symbols, the lottery: theme wheel, brief biography of shirley jackson.

Historical Context of The Lottery

Other books related to the lottery.

• Full Title: The Lottery
• Where Written: North Bennington, Vermont
• When Published: June 26, 1948
• Literary Period: Modernism
• Genre: Realistic Fiction; Dystopian Literature
• Setting: A rural small town, mid-twentieth century
• Climax: Tessie Hutchinson is stoned to death by her neighbors, which reveals the purpose of the mysterious annual lottery.
• Antagonist: The tradition of the lottery, the human inclination toward violence
• Point of View: Third Person

Extra Credit for The Lottery

Readers’ Responses. When the New Yorker published “The Lottery” in June of 1948, the magazine received hundreds of written responses to the piece, which were characterized, according to Jackson, with “bewilderment, speculation, and old-fashioned abuse.” Many readers went so far as to cancel their subscriptions to the New Yorker due to its publication of the story. The reaction to the story was so dramatic that Jackson issued a statement about it in the San Francisco Chronicle , explaining her purpose in crafting the story as an attempt to “shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.”

Banned in the Union of South Africa. The story was banned in South Africa, a fact which (as Jackson’s husband later reported) pleased Jackson. He wrote that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned ‘The Lottery,’ and she felt that they at least understood the story.”

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Analysis: “The Lottery”

“The Lottery,” a short story by Shirley Jackson published in 1948, caused a sensation with its tale of a pleasant American town where, each summer, one citizen is chosen by random lottery and stoned to death. The story presents an extreme case of conventional thinking and mindless group action untethered by reason or compassion. When it published the story, The New Yorker magazine received a firestorm of criticism, hate mail, and cancelled subscriptions. Today, however, “The Lottery” is widely considered a classic of horror fiction.

Though her career was cut short at age 48, author Shirley Jackson was prolific, writing hundreds of short stories and several novels, most of them in the mystery and horror genres. Her most famous creations are the controversial short story The Lottery and the gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House ); both are regarded as superlative examples of horror fiction, and both have been adapted for stage and screen.

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Analysis of 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson

Taking Tradition to Task

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When Shirley Jackson's chilling story "The Lottery" was first published in 1948 in The New Yorker , it generated more letters than any fiction the magazine had ever published. Readers were furious, disgusted, occasionally curious, and almost uniformly bewildered.

Public outcry over the story can be partly attributed to The New Yorker 's practice at the time of publishing works without identifying them as fact or fiction. Readers were also presumably still reeling from the horrors of World War II. Yet, though times have changed and we all now know the story is fiction, "The Lottery" has maintained its grip on readers decade after decade.

"The Lottery" is one of the most widely known stories in American literature and culture. It has been adapted for radio, theater, television, and even ballet. The Simpsons television show referenced the story in its "Dog of Death" episode in season three.

"The Lottery" is available to subscribers of The New Yorker and The Lottery and Other Stories , a collection of Jackson's work with an introduction by the writer A. M. Homes. You can hear Homes read and discuss the story with fiction editor Deborah Treisman at The New Yorker for free.

Plot Summary

"The Lottery" takes place on June 27, a beautiful summer day, in a small New England village where all the residents gather for their traditional annual lottery. Though the event appears festive, it soon becomes clear that no one wants to win the lottery. Tessie Hutchinson seems unconcerned about the tradition until her family draws the dreaded mark. Then she protests that the process wasn't fair. The winner, it turns out, will be stoned to death by the remaining residents. Tessie wins, and the story closes as the villagers—including her own family members—begin to throw rocks at her.

Dissonant Contrasts

The story achieves its terrifying effect primarily through Jackson's skillful use of contrasts , through which she keeps the reader's expectations at odds with the story's action.

The picturesque setting contrasts sharply with the horrific violence of the conclusion. The story takes place on a beautiful summer day with flowers "blossoming profusely" and the grass "richly green." When the boys begin gathering stones, it seems like typical, playful behavior, and readers might imagine that everyone has gathered for something pleasant like a picnic or a parade.

Just as fine weather and family gatherings might lead us to expect something positive, so, too, does the word "lottery," which usually implies something good for the winner. Learning what the "winner" really gets is all the more horrifying because we have expected the opposite.

Like the peaceful setting, the villagers' casual attitude as they make small talk—some even cracking jokes—belies the violence to come. The narrator's perspective seems completely aligned with the villagers', so events are narrated in the same matter-of-fact, everyday manner the villagers use.

The narrator notes, for instance, that the town is small enough that the lottery can be "through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner." The men stand around talking of ordinary concerns like "planting and rain, tractors and taxes." The lottery, like "the square dances, the teenage club, the Halloween program," is just another of the "civic activities" conducted by Mr. Summers.

Readers may find that the addition of murder makes the lottery quite different from a square dance, but the villagers and the narrator evidently do not.

Hints of Unease

If the villagers were thoroughly numb to the violence—if Jackson had misled her readers entirely about where the story was heading—I don't think "The Lottery" would still be famous. But as the story progresses, Jackson gives escalating clues indicating something is amiss.

Before the lottery starts, the villagers keep "their distance" from the stool with the black box on it, and they hesitate when Mr. Summers asks for help. This is not necessarily the reaction you might expect from people looking forward to the lottery.

It also seems unexpected that the villagers talk as if drawing the tickets is difficult work that requires a man to do it. Mr. Summers asks Janey Dunbar, "Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?" And everyone praises the Watson boy for drawing for his family. "Glad to see your mother's got a man to do it," says someone in the crowd.

The lottery itself is tense. People do not look around at each other. Mr. Summers and the men drawing slips of paper grin "at one another nervously and humorously."

On first reading, these details might strike the reader as odd, but they can be explained in several ways — for instance, people are nervous because they want to win. Yet when Tessie Hutchinson cries, "It wasn't fair!" readers realize there has been an undercurrent of tension and violence in the story all along.

What Does "The Lottery" Mean?

As with many stories, "The Lottery" has many analyses. For instance, the story has been read as a comment on World War II or a Marxist critique of an entrenched social order . Many readers find Tessie Hutchinson to be a reference to Anne Hutchinson , who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious reasons. (But it's worth noting that Tessie doesn't really protest the lottery on principle—she protests only her own death sentence.)

Regardless of which interpretation you favor, "The Lottery" is, at its core, a story about the human capacity for violence, especially when violence is couched in an appeal to tradition or social order.

Jackson's narrator says, "No one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box." But although the villagers like to imagine that they're preserving tradition, the truth is that they remember very few details and the box itself is not the original. Rumors swirl about songs and salutes, but no one knows how the tradition started or what the details should be.

The only thing that remains consistent is the violence, which gives some indication of the villagers' priorities (and perhaps all of humanity's). Jackson writes, "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones."

One of the starkest moments in the story is when the narrator bluntly states, "A stone hit her on the side of the head." From a grammatical standpoint, the sentence is structured so that no one actually threw the stone—it's as if the stone hit Tessie of its own accord. All the villagers participate (even giving Tessie's young son some pebbles to throw), so no one individually takes responsibility for the murder. And that, to me, is Jackson's most compelling explanation of why this barbaric tradition continues.

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“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Essay

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• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

The Lottery , a 1948 short story by Shirley Jackson, developed the themes of adherence to meaningless traditions, parenting and scapegoating. The broad aftermath and the negative responses of the readers who did not see the line between fiction and reality prove that the plot of the short story The Lottery by Jackson reflects the real problems of the modern community.

The plot of the story depicts a two hours lottery in a small town which finishes with a ritualistic death ceremony of stoning the unlucky participant as a sacrifice for ensuring a better harvest. At the beginning of the short story, the village children walk around collecting stones.

Mr. Summers who runs the lottery mixes the slips of paper in a black box, checks if everyone is in place and invites the heads of the families to draw the papers. When it clears out that Bill Hutchinson gets the unlucky slip, his wife Tessie starts protesting saying that her husband had not enough time for making his choice and the lottery is not fair.

Then, each member of the Hutchinsons family selects a slip of paper, and Tessie draws a slip with a black dot on it. Then, the villagers throw their stones into Tessie as a part of their death ritual. The fact that Tessie does not question the rite itself, but protests against the choice of her family emphasizes the idea of adherence to tradition as the major theme of the short story.

The rite is regarded as sacred and the idea of doubting it does not occur to anybody. When Mrs. Adams admits that the ritual of the lottery has already been abandoned in other villages, Warner as the eldest man in this community answers that giving up the rite can cause only troubles. “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves” (Jackson 14).

Justifying the death ritual with the fact that the lottery has been always held in the village previously, Jackson discloses the theme of parenting when in one of the final episodes, a woman puts a stone into a child’s hand, fostering the tradition of violence and lotteries searching for the scapegoats to be stoned.

Regardless of the indignation raising in the readers’ minds, after decoding the symbolic meaning of the depicted lottery rite, everyone can recollect the situations from personal experience and world’s history in which modern the community selects a scapegoat to be discriminated.

For instance, the Nazis scapegoated the Jewish people, proclaiming them the reason of their troubles. Regardless of the current societal progress, modern people frequently scapegoat sexual and ethnical minorities, blaming them for the current moral decay and other social problems. The social phenomenon of scapegoating is rooted deep in public consciousness and tradition according to which the dominating social group looks for the opportunities of self-affirmation and shifting the responsibility for their problems on the others.

Though the ritual of stoning to death has certain historical basis, its meaning is rather symbolical and should not be taken literally by modern readers. The examples of scapegoating the others, including the limited rights of immigrants for finding a good job and the so-called glass ceiling due to which women receive lower salaries than men doing the same job and have lower chances for career promotion clearly represent the phenomenon of scapegoating in modern community.

In other words, appealing to the readers’ feelings, Shirley Jackson provides them with food for thought not limited to the indignation with the medieval rite, but extended to the reappraisal of their own attitudes and behavior.

The aftermath of The Lottery and the readers’ reaction to the short story proves that its plot impressed the readers recognizing it as the reflection of their lives.

After the short story was published in The New Yorker in 1948, the author received hundreds of hostile letters from the readers objecting to the brutal ending of the story. “As Jackson noted in her witty essay Biography of a Story , many of the letters she received that summer were from people who wanted to know whether these lotteries are held and whether they could go there and watch” (Murphy 104).

The debates concerning the actual location of these rites prove that the line between the fiction and reality as perceived by the readers appeared to be unclear. Hypocritically concealing their fear of becoming a scapegoat, not feeling empathy with Tessie Hutchinson who becomes a victim and not having moral strength and common sense to abandon the meaningless rite, the characters of the short story have a strong resemblance to modern readers.

“The contradictions of myth and ideology, the imaginary solutions to real problems, emerge in the specific rituals that ostensibly endorse the myth and ideology” (Hattenhauer 44). Thus, the plot of the short story can be regarded as the exaggerated reflection of the phenomenon of scapegoating as the imaginary solution to the real problems of the modern community.

The readers’ reaction to the short story The Lottery which became the classic of American literature proves that the depicted phenomenon of scapegoating appeals to their feelings as a topical problem of the modern community.

Works Cited

Hattenhauer, Darryl. Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic. State University of New York Press, 2003. Print.

Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery . Mankato: Creative Education, 2008. Print.

Murphy, Bernice. Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Publishers. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 12). "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/

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IvyPanda . 2018. ""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.

1. IvyPanda . ""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-lottery/.