Situational irony exists in a story when a discrepancy occurs in what the character or characters think will happen and what actually happens. Situational irony occurs in “The Lottery” in the imagery depicted in the opening paragraphs, the characters and their dialogue with each other and the introduction of Mrs. Hutchinson as she arrives late. The most ironic point of the story is the attitude of the villagers, which will be addressed in each of the examples above. In the opening sentence you find a description of the day. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full sunny day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” With this description you don’t anticipate the dark events of the end of the story.
Shelly Kasper Jodi Stapleton English 1102 The lottery symbolism “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story about how every citizen in a small town is forced to take part in the annual lottery. What the reader soon finds out is that this is not the type of lottery that one would want to win, and the only reason why the town holds this type of lottery every year is because of tradition. A cheerful tone seems to be set from the very beginning when Jackson describes a warm sunny summer’s day; school is just getting out and everyone appears content. Next she describes the children and adults gathering stones for the lottery. This is the first event that makes the reader question the action of the townspeople.
The drawing has been around over seventy-seven years and is practiced by every member of the town. The surrealism of this idea is most evident through Jackson's tone. Her use of friendly language among the villagers and the presentation of the lottery as an event similar to the square dances and Halloween programs illustrate the lottery as a welcomed, festive event. The lottery is conducted in a particular manner, and with so much anticipation by the villagers, that the reader expects the winner to receive a prize or something of that manner. It is not until the very end of the story that the reader learns the winner's fate: Death, by friends and family.
In the beginning, the people in the town look happy. They know each other and talk to each other, like talking to friends (evidence: “They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands.”[p. 3]). The bonds between the members of the population look pretty close enough. It’s not just the adults who look happy, the children also happy. The children play together and talk to each other while the adults are on the way to the town square (evidence: The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.” [p. 2]).
The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson which is about a tradition, the lottery, held in a village every year. The theme of the story is about the danger of following a baseless and illogical tradition. Throughout the story, irony is heavily used on the lottery itself. In the beginning of the story, Jackson positively described the setting of the story by stating “The flowers were blossoming and the grass was richly green.” (pg.74) and the villagers talking to each other gracefully. However, a person is about to get chosen to get stoned to death.
Interoperating Symbols in The Lottery The Lottery was published in The New Yorker in June of 1948 (“’The Lottery’”). Shirley Jackson’s own agent was not fond of the story, but did her job and sent it to The New Yorker (Jackson, 269). The New Yorker’s fiction editor found the short story both puzzling and intriguing (Jackson, 269). He decided to print it with one little change (Jackson, 263). He wanted to change part of the setting of the story (Jackson, 269).
“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” (The Lottery, 247) Jackson begins the story describing the scenery before the lottery. The way she describes it leads the reader to believe this day is a happy day that the town folk look forward to annually. Jackson foreshadows the ending of the story in the beginning when she talks about the children collecting the smoothest and roundest stones and putting them in piles. Little do we know the stones are the “weapons” used to destroy the unlucky winner of the lottery. Ordinary folks in the society consider the lottery an ordinary ritual or tradition.
The idea of Leningrad being a hopeful city had already been placed in the readers mind since the beginning when the seasons of Leningrad are described "It's half past ten in the evening but the light of day still glows", this lyrical description with more light portrays the image of beauty and hope and that even though it was "such a late spring, murky and doubtful, clinging to winter's skirts" , spring still comes, beautiful as always, symbolizing hope and rejuvenation. Different aspects of the city also act as representation of, "the Luga line's where we'll hold them, if we hold them anywhere", it gives the Leningraders hope, Lake Ladoga "the ice road" is also a very important part of the city, and even though it failed at first, it eventually came through and was the reason of the Leningrader's survival. But Leningrad is not a perfect city where the air is
Likewise the weather is excellent, warm during the day, and cooler in the afternoon and night. The house is made of wood, with ten bedrooms and even though it has a huge dinning room, we had to take turns to eat. Children were divided in girls and boys rooms. The girls’ room was in front of the garden, so when I woke up in the morning my view was full of colors because of all the flowers in the garden. Since we were a lot of kids, we always invented games and really had great time.
Although the traditional lottery has allowed for murder in the town, the villagers feel powerless to change it, leading to chaos but moreover focusing on Jackson’s implied comment on the subject of the story by using the setting to understand the dangers of blindly following tradition. In “The Lottery”, Jackson provides us with large amounts of details about the day of the lottery. The details are specific and play a huge part of the setting. In the first paragraph, Jackson describes the setting by giving us the date, time, and temperature. In this scene Jackson lists a couple more important pieces of information such as the scenery through flowers and green grass, the town square, and the post office and bank.