Formal Analysis
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the theme of this short story is about how strong tradition is amongst a community of three hundred people. The theme shows that over time, the tradition had lost its translation. By providing an omniscient eye-level narrator perspective, the speaker emphasizes the significance of tradition and how it is passed on from generations. As time goes by, the people continue to perform the tradition as a significant part of their lives, but lose the purpose and reason of it. The three main ideas the speaker expresses that consist of the story include symbolism (character’s name) and cultural analysis, tradition, and how tradition was lost in translation.
Jackson’s intention to make the characters’ name symbolic was to provide the readers the correlation between the characters and the context and time in the story. For example, Mr. Summers owns the villages’ largest business, a coal mine, and is also its head official of the lottery since he has the time and energy to run the civic activities. Summers’ name is significant because the lottery would only take place during the summer season, in particular, June 27th. Mr. Graves, the postmaster, is the second leading official of the lottery and assistant of Mr. Summers. Graves is essential to the lottery because he leads the people to their graves. Also, beneath both Summers and Graves is Mr. Martin, a wealthy owner of the only grocer in the community. These powerful men would be at the top of the social ladder in the community because of their economic and political superiority because of their cultural structure in the society. The cultural analysis the speaker describes is an old-fashioned community with traditional and conservative ideals, which men were superior in the head of the households, social and political (Summers, Graves, and Martin) and main participants of the lottery. All these men fit a specific role in their community and lottery which the...