Plot of the short story the lottery by shirley jackson

The conflict of the short story, “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is man vs. nature. It is about the struggle between people in a village with a heritage traditional culture: killing each other.  

EXPLANATION:  

In the short story “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson as the author and the writer criticizes the old traditional culture which is still being kept by the people in that area. If only the culture is not about killing each other (between the villagers) it doesn’t matter. Yet, the culture includes playing the lottery and killing one another who is the villager of that village. It is such a crime to kill someone innocent.

The short story “The Lottery” tells about villagers in a village who celebrates “lottery” every year. All of the villagers have to join this celebration because it is a heritage traditional culture that should be kept forever. Actually, there is no law regulation about this tradition because it was in the past where modern laws didn’t exist yet.  

Everyone who joins this celebration has to take paper. When someone gets a paper with a black dot on it, he has to be killed by another villager. Although he has to be killed, it is assumed that he is the ‘winner’ of the lottery and it is a pride to be the winner. In the story, Tessie Hutchinson is the ‘lucky’ one to get the black dot paper. As she gets that paper, she has to be killed by another villager. Overall, this story criticizes that old tradition which doesn’t make sense anymore today.

LEARN MORE:  

If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:

1. What is the theme of the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson? brainly.com/question/192100  

2. From what point of view is the lottery by Shirley Jackson’s being told? brainly.com/question/7700886  

KEYWORDS:  The Lottery, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the conflict in The Lottery, man vs. nature  

Subject: English

Class: 10-12  

Sub-chapter: The Lottery