Mr.
Summers, Mr. Graves and Mr. Martin are the most important men in the village. With a
successful coal business, Summers can be view as the leader of this closely
knit community where men dominate women. The women are apparently satisfied
with their position in the social ladder. Tessie assents to the idea of the
lottery until she is selected as the person to be killed, screaming, "It
isn't fair. It isn't right." Tessie's sudden change of heart upon having
her own name chosen serves to highlight the hypocrisy of a society in which
violence is accepted until it becomes personal. Tessie had not complained at
the previous lotteries, yet she complains when herself who is going to be
killed.
Except
for Mr. and Mrs. Adams' words to Old Man Warner, there is no notion of ending
the lottery. When the children gather the smoothest stones they can find,
readers do not think it is that important; however, the smoothest stones will
causes a slower and more painful death.
Another thing that is quite disturbing
is that the villagers want to get the lottery over with as quickly as possible
so they can get home for dinner, which shows that the death of a person from
the lottery is not seen as very important. When Mrs. Adams tells Warner that
some of the other villages have stopped holding the annual lotteries, he
replies, "Lottery in June, corn is heavy soon." He is a
traditionalist who views the annual event as a way of life. His comment about
those contemplating an end to the lottery: "Next thing you know, they'll
want to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a
while." Summers, whose opinion takes precedence, doesn’t feel the need to
oppose the lottery, and the villagers are all inclined to continue the
tradition.
Shirley
Jackson explores the theme of social class division in “The Lottery.” The
town’s social class division is unwittingly built around the “lottery.” he
town’s social ladder is broken down into people with the most powerful
occupations, only men were employed in these occupations. As the owner of the
coal business, Mr. Summers was the most powerful businessman in the town. Mr.
Graves, the post office official, and Mr. Martin, the town grocer, were the
other prominent businessmen in the town. The townsman in charge of conducting the
lottery was Mr. Summers; his occupation allowed him the “time and energy to
devote to civic activities.” Mr. Graves and Mr. Martin also aided Mr. Summers
during the lottery. The wealthiest people in the town not only had economic
control, but the lottery instilled their political control in the town as well.
Other men in the town, although not directly in charge of the lottery, had more
power then women. The men were the ones to choose the lottery slip for the
family,placingth charge of the family.
The
lottery itself is built around the “winner,” one such that instills social
division. Jackson carefully placed previous examples of the lottery’s victims.
Throughout the story, it is implied that the lottery winner has always attained
qualities that the townspeople found less desirable and that the person chosen
was also a social scapegoat. Mr. Summers’ wife was a likely victim of the
lottery. The townspeople felt sorry for Mr. Summers, because he did not have a
family. His wife was a scold, thus she did not have much work ethic. Jackson
tactfully implied that she was a former victim of the lottery. Women it seems
are the ones most often at the mercy of the lottery. Women in the story are
ones that seem to have the least amount of work ethic. The lottery’s choice of
Tessie Hutchinson was easily predicted. Her lack of work ethic was displayed as
the only member of the town to arrive to the lottery late.
The
social class division of the town is determined by the work ethic of the
townspeople and in turn is unconsciously motivated by the lottery. As in modern
society, their whole social structure was built around something that no one
consciously realized; therefore, no one questioned the lottery and the present
social class division was instilled.
“The Lottery”, serce contrasts commonplace details of contemporary life with a barbaric
ritual, and it is interesting to debate. This Barbaric ritual is known as “the
lottery". The setting is a small American town, June 27 for their annual
lottery. After the head of each family draws a small piece of paper, one slip
with a black spot indicates the Hutchinson family has been chosen. When each
member of that family draws again to see which family member wins, Tessie
Hutchinson is the final choice. Then, she is stoned to death by everyone present, including her own family, as well
as both the young boys and young girls as a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest, according to the belief of the
community. The fundamental problem of this story is the
ideology that hegemony the people. They accept the old tradition that is
the lottery. This barbaric tradition causes the hypocrisy, scapegoating and then we can see the weaknesses of the common man and the
unfairness of human nature.
Ideology is
silent, like the water in the aquarium breathed by the fish, it is virtually
invisible, like the super structure of The Lottery too. This idea disguise or
mask what is really going on, the way people live and the ideas about how to
understand themselves and their lives. The basic structure is the ideology that
people still worship in this short story is the lottery. It is a barbaric
ritual or the hell tradition. From this basic structure it cause the super
structure that is people still believe a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest, and do The Lottery tradition. From this
basic and super structure causes many problems, first the scapegoating itself.
Second, the unfairness of human nature. Finally is about the weaknesses of the
common man.
The
scapegoating, see when Tessie becomes a sacrificial lamb at the end
of the story. The message here could be interpreted in the sense that society
wrongfully designates scapegoats to bear the sins of the community. Then, the unfairness of human nature had shown when Tessie
is chosen as the sacrifice at the end of the story. At the beginning, she jokes
about the lottery and carries on like all the other people in the town.
However, when her family, and finally her own name is chosen, her lighthearted
nature about this lottery sudden becomes very serious. It is interesting to
note that one's sense of justice is not active until one becomes the victim of
injustice himself herself. The actual theme of the short story is that man
creates philosophical existences that he is unable to fulfill. While it is
obvious that Tessie believes it was not fair that she was chosen, Jackson is
also trying to express that human nature is unfair. It is in human nature to
kill and that is unfair. Though
it is arguable that the primary themes are scapegoating, man's inherent evil, and the destructive
nature of observing ancient, outdated rituals" this is a common
misconception. This is shown through Tessie Hutchinson. Throughout the story
she is joking around about the lottery and carrying on like all the other
townspeople, but as soon as her family name is chosen from the black box her
perspective takes quite the turn.
The
wickedness of the common man, this story starts off quite peacefully. We would
never expect such a typical town of common people to do such wicked things.
This surprise twist is a reflection that any person has the capacity to do evil
things. It may be your neighbor across the street or the unassuming student. We
are often shocked to learn that these people can perform crimes as heinous as
serial killers or dictators.
Then we can see that there
is a rejecting of the tradition. The
original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black
box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner,
the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers
about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was
represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been
made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been
constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every
year, after the lottery, 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 box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black
but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in
some places faded or stained.
In real life, many people
are afraid to reject outdated traditions, ideas, rules, laws and practices. It
is quite obvious that the story describes the townspeople's reluctance to
reject the tradition of the lottery. The children had
stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles. Tessie
Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands
out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair,"
she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. People still done this old
tradition, it means that they fail to deconstruct the hell structure.
So the message that we
can get by understanding this short story is ideology or share believe and
values that already hegemony the society is difficult to deconstruct. The
weaknesses of the common man and the unfairness of human nature sometimes
unpredictable, it can happen in every part of the world and to everyone.
"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 26, 1948 and issue of The New Yorker. The story contrasts commonplace details of contemporary life with a barbaric ritual known as the "lottery". The setting is a small American town, June 27 for their annual lottery. After the head of each family draws a small piece of paper, one slip with a black spot indicates the Hutchinson family has been chosen. When each member of that family draws again to see which family member wins, Tessie Hutchinson is the final choice. She is then stoned to death by everyone present, including her own family, as well as both the young boys and young girls as a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest, according to the belief of the community.
The fundamental problem of this story is the ideology that hegemony the people. They accept the old date tradition that is the lottery. This barbaric tradition causes the hypocrisy, scapegoating and then we can see the weaknesses of the common man and the unfairness of human nature. In this paper, I will relate the hypocrisy, the weaknesses of the common man and the unfairness of human nature with Marxism theory. The critic of Marxism is view the work as the product of work and whose practitioners emphasize the ideology as they reflect. The task of Marxist literary criticism is to show that the text as it cannot know itself, to manifest those conditions of its making, about which necessary silent (Terry Eagleton). Implicit in my analysis is to show the basic and super structure in “The Lottery” society. Then, I will focus on Marxist relates to this short story to prove it.
Ideology is silent, like the water in the aquarium breathed by the fish, it is virtually invisible, like the super structure of The Lottery too. This idea disguise or mask what is really going on, the way people live and the ideas about how to understand themselves and their lives. The basic structure is the ideology that people still worship in this short story is the lottery. It is a barbaric ritual or the hell tradition. From this basic structure it cause the super structure that is people still believe a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest, and do The Lottery tradition. From this basic and super structure causes many problems, first the scapegoating itself. Second, the unfairness of human nature. Then, the weaknesses of the common man. In this paper, I also will show you the reluctance of rejecting the outdates idea, how people reject this structure and the goal, is it success to deconstruct the people ideology or not.
The scapegoating, see when Tessie becomes a sacrificial lamb at the end of the story. The message here could be interpreted in the sense that society wrongfully designates scapegoats to bear the sins of the community.
Then, the unfairness of human nature had shown when Tessie is chosen as the sacrifice at the end of the story. At the beginning, she jokes about the lottery and carries on like all the other people in the town. However, when her family, and finally her own name is chosen, her lighthearted nature about this lottery sudden becomes very serious. It is interesting to note that one's sense of justice is not active until one becomes the victim of injustice himself herself. As she is being stoned, Tessie yells "It isn't fair", this is a clear example of dramatic irony. The actual theme of the short story is that man creates philosophical existences that he is unable to fulfill. While it is obvious that Tessie believes it was not fair that she was chosen, Jackson is also trying to express that human nature is unfair. It is in human nature to kill and that is unfair. Though it is arguable that the primary themes are scapegoating, man's inherent evil, and the destructive nature of observing ancient, outdated rituals" this is a common misconception. The actual theme of the short story is that man creates philosophical existences that he is unable to fulfill. This is shown through Tessie Hutchinson. Throughout the story she is joking around about the lottery and carrying on like all the other townspeople, but as soon as her family name is chosen from the black box her perspective takes quite the turn. Suddenly this "isn't fair" when in all reality a lottery is by definition the most fair method of chance. When Hutchinson exclaims, "It isn't fair!" this is a prime example of dramatic irony. While it is obvious that Tessie believes it was not fair that she was chosen, Jackson is also trying to express that human nature is unfair. It is in human nature to kill and that is unfair.
The wickedness of the common man, this story starts off quite peacefully. We would never expect such a typical town of common people to do such wicked things. This surprise twist is a reflection that any person has the capacity to do evil things. It may be your neighbor across the street or the unassuming student. We are often shocked to learn that these people can perform crimes as heinous as serial killers or dictators.
Then we can see that there is a rejecting of the tradition "The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, 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 box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.”
"We have always had a lottery as far back as I can remember. I see no reason to end it." In real life, many people are afraid to reject outdated traditions, ideas, rules, laws and practices. It is quite obvious that the story describes the townspeople's reluctance to reject the tradition of the lottery. And at the end of the story: “Mr. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said. gasping for breath. "I can't run at all. You'll have to go ahead and I'll catch up with you."
The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles. Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him. "It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her”. People still done this old tradition, it means that they fail to deconstruct the hell structure.
Ideology or share believe and values that already hegemony the society is difficult to deconstruct. The weaknesses of the common man and the unfairness of human nature sometimes unpredictable, it can happen in every part of the world and to everyone.
Writer: Cilik Tripamungkas (2009)
REFERENCES:
http://www.sparknotes_thelottery.com/ at June 1st 2009 08.11 pm
http://www.wikipedia_marxism/html.com/ at June 1st 2009 08.13 pm
http://www.classicshortstory_shirleyjacson_thelottery.com/ at June 1st 2009 08.15 pm
