CourtneyFL25
Can you check my essay for citation issues? My Professsor keeps…
Can you check my essay for citation issues? My Professsor keeps belittling my paper and it’s frustrating me. I don’t know where I am going wrong.
The short story that I choose to critique is “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. This short story was set in Vermont in the 1940’s and was published in 1948. The author Shirley Jackson was said to be one of the most brilliant and influential authors of the twentieth century. 1 (Shirley Jackson’s Bio, n.d.) The story is about a town of around 300 people who gather once a year for a lottery. This lottery isn’t winning a prize as we would think of but instead this is a very disturbing tradition.
The story begins with describing the morning of June 27th. It’s a sunny, warm, summer day and the members of the town are gathering in the town square. The children have arrived to the square first. Some are playing and others are talking about how school just ended and summer is now beginning. The children were collecting stones with some even filling their pockets. Soon after the men start arriving at the town square. They discuss amongst themselves planting, rain, tractors and taxes. The women came shortly after their menfolk. They summoned their children from playing to come and join them as the lottery starts. The lottery was conducted by Mr. Summers. He runs the coal business in town. The towns people pity him because he never had any children and his wife is a scold. He arrives to the town square holding the black wooden box. He has Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter help him hold the box while he stirred the papers inside the box throughly. There is a lot of “fussing” that must be done before the lottery opens. Mr. Summers roll called all the families in the town. In the lottery, the head of the households picks a slip of paper from the box. Bill Hutchinson pulls the slip of paper from the box with the mark on it. Tessie Hutchinson begins to protest declaring that Mr. Summer hadn’t given him enough time to pick. Bill Hutchinson tells Tessie to shut up. He is shocked and frustrated at her protest. After the initially slips are drawn another drawling takes place. All the Hutchinson family now has to draw slips to see who wins the lottery. Mr. And Mrs. Hutchison have three children so five slips are put into the black wooden box. Each member of the family now has to select a slip. In the end, it’s Mrs. Tessie Hutchison who selects the slips with the marking. She has been selected for the lottery. The stones the children had collected earlier are now going to be used. The adults are also picking up stones. Tessie Hutchinson is screaming to everyone it isn’t fair but the towns people descend on her. She is ultimately stoned to death. 2 (Jackson, 1948)
The article I found in the library is called “Shirley Jackson’s Use of Symbols in ‘The Lottery.’ written by Danielle Schaub. The article shows Shirley Jackson’s symbolic use of numbers, names, and objects to the role of tradition in her story “The Lottery.” Danielle Schaub states in her article “Suddenly, when the winner is selected, the innocent game turns out to be a horrifying sacrifice: the winner is stoned to death for the welfare of the community. Such is the limited picture that could be given of Shirley Jackson’s “The lottery” if symbols were overlooked.” 3 (Schaub, page 1)
After reading the short story “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson my opinion on the story is a mix between intrigued, confusion and disgust. Initially, I didn’t understand what the stones the children were collecting were for nor did I realize what they would win in this lottery. After reading the story to the end and realizing the winner was going to be stoned to death I was horrified and confused. How would doing this benefit the community? Why did Mr. Summers think other communities who ended this tradition were fools? It left me with a lot more questions than answers. I think Shirley Jackson’s story was well written, intriguing but ended brutally and left me with a feeling of disgust for what Mrs. Hutchinson had to endure.
Works Cited
1. “Shirley_Jackson_page.” Shirleyjackson.org, shirleyjackson.org/Bibliography.html.
2. Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 18 June 1948, www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery.
3. Schaub, Danielle. “Shirley Jackson’s Use of Symbols in ‘The Lottery.’.” Journal of the Short
Story in English 14 (Spring 1990): 79-86. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 187. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.
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