The Lottery

In "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson conveys irony by painting a beautiful day with people, which is offset by a dark, and beaten black box to show how ugly the human race can be on the inside when there is such beauty on the outside. She gives us a scenario that is still played along with today. That is that we as humans play into ritual just for the sake of ritual without giving clear minded thought before we act. She also conveys a point of saying that we can think for ourselves, but letting others think for us throws the idea of individuality out the window.

The black box brings a lot of different elements into the story. Shirley Jackson gives us a great example of foreshadowing when the black box is just sitting in Town Square. Black is a color that almost always coincides with death. When the reader understands how happy everyone in the town is and how beautiful the day is they can not help but think the black box has to bring something evil into the story. The black box also gives the reader a feeling of being trapped. There is no where to go because the town is almost completely isolated. There is nothing anyone could say because of his or her fear of the overwhelming majority. So, everyone in town has actually been in their own black box. When people are sheltered or blind to other ways of thinking they become completely comfortable with their surroundings, or in this case they're in their own box.

The ritual in the story is that whoever ends up drawing the piece of paper with the black dot is stoned to death. The question that comes to mind for this situation is why stones? I feel that the villagers used stones because one stone can not kill you but many stones can. Shirley Jackson is trying to convey that people will believe anything if a certain idea or way of thinking is thrown and beaten into them a numerous amount of times. Analytically the stones are not just killing the person the stones are killing the persons thoughts. If there is not at least two separate groups of people with opposing views, then one person's rebellion against a majority is forfeit.