The Lottery

Throughout the story, the author often refers to "this village" or "the villagers," and the village can certainly be spoken of as a character in its own right. Indeed, the village is presented as...

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is often thought to be a story primarily about scapegoating. For whatever reason (the ambiguity appears to be intentional), the people of the town sacrifice one...

In this story, an innocent woman is stoned to death simply because society has long held this practice as a tradition. Unwilling to embrace change even though there is no good reason for these...

Let me point out that the dangerous situations in the two stories are of different natures and may not even seem particularly dangerous, not in comparison to a spy story, for example. The dangerous...

I don't believe it is certain that this story takes place in New England. It might have been somewhere in the Midwest. Old Man Warner cites an old saying: "Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in...

I agree with mwestwood. Whatever your thesis is it needs to be something that can be argued. We can't really argue that mindless following of ritual can be harmful--that's a common sense issue....

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Keeping the thematic focus suggested above, you could add on to this by developing arguments about the symbols of death that are prominent in the story. The color black which we often associate...

Inference-based question: Why does the town in "The Lottery" continue the lottery from year to year? Jackson never explicitly answers this question, but she certainly expects her readers to be...

The image of the scapegoat is of course an important image in terms of understanding the beliefs and behaviour of this apparently modern day and normal village. The way in which they select Tessie...

The author wanted to create the impression of a large gathering of people. She does this by using the word "crowd" repeatedly throughout the story. For example: The crowd was quiet. A girl...