Shirley Jackson’s short story called “The Lottery” is a dystopian story that teaches an important lesson about the society. A small town has a lottery every year, and one citizen is picked to be stoned to death by the other citizens. Jackson portrays through her story that rules or traditions should not be blindly followed just because they are traditions.
The ending of “The Lottery” was particularly surprising to me. I was taken aback when I found out that the assumingely “lucky” citizens was to be stoned to death. Since everyone was dressed up, and laughing before the actual lottery happened, it made me go onto the wrong track. However, there were things that I barely paid attention to until we brought it up in the group conversation. These things foreshadowed a ghastly ending.
The black box foreshadowed something evil hence the color black. Black is normally assumed to be the color of death, fear, and evil. Another thing was the strange name, Mr. Graves. This foreshadowed the death of one of our characters, who would brutally end up in a grave.
This story’s ending and way of illustrating the theme was very unnerving to me. It was almost unworldly that people would have the nerve to stone their loved ones and friends to death. However this made the theme a lot clearer, almost standing out. Jackson’s way of conveying the theme was a little harsh, especially the last phrase; “and they were upon her”. Still, this shows the consequences of blindly following traditions. This hits you hard when you read the story and it glues the theme to your head.
Overall, I think Jackson’s way of portraying the theme was very straightforward and quite dark, though very useful for emphasizing the theme. I was super surprised by the ending but it helped convey the theme. I really enjoyed reading this short story and the theme is going to help me in my future life.