Tessie's rebellion, writes Kosenko, beings with her late arrival at the lottery, a faux pas that raises suspicions of her resistance to everything that the lottery stands for (Kosenko pp). By choosing Tessie Hutchinson as the lottery's victim and scapegoat, Jackson reveals the lottery to be an ideological mechanism that serves to defuse the average villager's deep, inarticulate dissatisfaction with the social order in which he lives by channeling it into anger directed at the victims of that social order (Kosenko pp).
Tessie's next social faux pas or unconscious act of rebellion comes when their name is drawn, and she says, "Get up there, Bill" (Jackson pp). Kosenko writes that in doing this, Tessie "inverts the power relation that holds in the village between husbands and wives...her remark evokes nervous laughter from the crowd, which sense the taboo that she has violated" (Kosenko pp). And then, according to Kosenko, Tessie's final faux pas is to question the rules of the lottery which relegate women to inferior status as the property of their husbands (Kosenko pp). When Mr. Summers asks Bill Hutchinson whether his family has any other households, Tessie yells, "There's Don and Eva.... Make them take their chance," however, Mr. Summers reminds her, "Daughters draw with their husbands' families" (Kosenko pp). Thus, power in the village is exclusively consolidated into the hands of male heads of families and households, and women are disenfranchised (Kosenko pp).
Kosenko suggests that Tessie is a woman whose role as a housewife deprives her of her freedom by forcing her to submit to a husband who gains his power over her by virtue of his place in the workforce,...
Kosenko notes, the village in "The Lottery" "exhibits the same socio-economic stratification that most people take for granted in a modern, capitalist society. Summers, whose name reflects the time of year in which the lottery takes place, is in charge of the solemn ritual. Although not portrayed as corrupt, Summer nevertheless represents an inherently violent element within modern capitalist hierarchies. Graves, whose name symbolizes death itself, is the town
Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne" Nathaniel Hawthorne and Shirley Jackson like using symbols in expressing their thoughts in stories. "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Lottery" utilize symbols to emphasize themes in each of the stories. While Hawthorne makes use of objects and names to strengthen the theme, Jackson predominantly makes use of names to consolidate her theme; she does not limit to using a
Shirley Jackson is widely regarded as one of the most prominent American authors of the twentieth century, best known for her works of horror and mystery. Born on December 14, 1916, in San Francisco, California, Jackson grew up in a suburban setting, which later came to influence her writings of small-town America and the often macabre events that unfold within it (Franklin, 2016). Jackson's personal life, marked by both her
The symbol in the story is the black box from which the villagers draw every year. The fact that the box grows shabbier and shabbier without being changed is an evidence of how the people generally cling to traditions and refuse to let go: "Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black
Other characters also make a strong contribution to the theme of the story. The character of Delacroix is important because this name reflects the role of religion in this brutality, again pointing the reader to the idea that religion is a contributing factor to mankind's brutality. "De la croix" is French for "of the cross," but the character's name has been bastardized by the villagers. This symbolizes how religion has
Jackson was born in San Francisco, to father Leslie Jackson, an English immigrant and Geraldine Bugbee Jackson, who was related to the famous California architects, an association some give credit for driving her sense of place and detail for architecture in her stories. She spent most of her years in Vermont and is associated as a New England writer. The last work Jackson published, like the Lottery was one
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