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don't usually do this, now I know why; bored, just turned in a
terrible copy, had to redo it, 4th draft
Clank: clank
Abstract
This paper will analyze Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery"
for the use of any foreshadow that could have been connected to the
story itself, to major world events, or to public knowledge, that may
have helped a reader to understanding the meaning or ending of the
story--some readers claim to understand some don't—-because many
didn't understand manifested by the speculative or abusive responses
the New Yorker received from the public after the story was published
on June 28, 1948. The meaning of foreshadow in this paper means the
use of hints, or minimal bits of information representing some
complete knowledge in something, either already stated somewhere
earlier in the story(completely or in intervals)or a complete
knowledge outside of the story, that are tactically placed in a story
to prepare the reader, usually to remind him of important stuff too,
short attention spans, so to understand the ending completely because
expressing that hint fully would be too redundant and waste the
reader's time, interest, or imagination.
The "Lottery" by Shirley Jackson does not have enough foreshadow,
neither connected to anything in story itself, nor are there strong
foreshadows in the story that can be connected to public events or
public knowledge, to supply most readers with enough information to
help them understand or put together the meaning or purpose of the
story, or story's ending, completely. The story in itself will be
analyzed first for any foreshadow sentences or passages that provide
the reader with a connection to knowledge already stated earlier in
the story that helps a reader to understand the purpose or ending of
the story. The story then will be analyzed for any outside world
events or public knowledge that could have been put together with any
of the story's foreshadows that also could have provided information
to a reader to better understand the story.
First, there are a couple of vague foreshadow sentences in the story
that provide some readers, the ones who know a little history of
punishments and ancient rituals, with a connection to expect and
somewhat understand the ending but no foreshadow sentences that are
distinct enough for the general reader to also make some sort of
connection, i.e., there are no passages that provide complete
knowledge in the story itself to allow the reader to completely make
use of those foreshadow sentences in the first place, much less
connect them anywhere else because they are too vague. There are two
main foreshadow sentences that the author provides in her story that
helps some readers but not all of them to expect and somewhat
understand the meaning of the ending.
"Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the
other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and
roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix-- the
villagers pronounced this name "Dellacroy"--eventually made a great
pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the
raids of the other boys (1)."
This foreshadow sentence comes after the author communicates to the
reader that some special event is taking place. Someone that knows the
history or knowledge of stoning could see how this ambiguous sentence
is connected to the ending but someone that didn't know this knowledge
wouldn't be able to pick up on the hint because the author did not
bother to earlier state that knowledge in her story, and therefore,
not expecting the ending, a public stoning, someone not picking up on
this foreshadow, not the first time you read the story anyway, unable
to prepare for the ending, maybe someone was going to win a present or
something, and never being allowed to scan for a motive behind the
ending because of that, the cause of someone dying, the author allows
the reader to wander and become clueless all the way to the end.
"Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next
thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves,
nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying
about `Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know,
we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a
lottery," he added petulantly (3)."
And this seconded foreshadow sentence, another ambiguous sentence, is
pivotal for a reader to catch so they can understand the ending but if
someone wasn't privy to the foreshadow's destination, no where contain
in the story, they wouldn't understand and probably view the ending as
senseless, which many 1948's readers did, maybe many still do. The
first foreshadow sentence was supposed to prepare the reader to expect
a public stoning, and if a reader was able to expect that, then they
will have naturally expected to find out why, but since the first
foreshadow is too ambiguous the sentence doesn't do anything for a
person reading the story for the first time, and many miss the hint,
and are surprise by the ending because there appears to be no motive,
or none that they were able to catch.
The second foreshadow sentence becomes irrelevant now because the
reader missed the first hint that a stoning is about to take place,
but that doesn't mean that if the reader knew there was going to be a
stoning that they still would have been able to understand the motive
because the sentence is too ambiguous. The second foreshadow sentence
is supposed to supply the reader with a motive, either direct them to
stuff already stated somewhere in the story, or stuff stated as an
axiom somewhere else, but there is only mutter. The author uses Old
Man Warner to direct the reader's thought to something everybody in
their right mind should know, and that's that the motives behind some
senseless practices aren't really senseless but just forgotten or
purposely ignore by people because a person can't live long enough to
know what's really going on and stuff, because that knowledge is not
fully disseminated to the public, or because the truth hurts, maybe
you're not who you claim to be.
There are some cultures in the history of our world that have
sacrificed members of their society for various reasons: maybe some
cultures sacrificed young people because the gods needed death to
bring rain or wouldn't bring rain because no one was dying, or maybe,
to reduce the number of mouths to feed, so others can be feed better,
compete better, righter anyway; other cultures use other people as
scapegoats when stuff goes wrong e.g., the rains not coming or
something not going right here, probably because this woman is a
witch, or I'm bad, stuff is going wrong, because this person made me
bad, therefore, I don't deserve to be punished, this person does, or
worst yet, let someone else be punished for someone else faults,
someone else mistakes, because that's what there here for anyway. And
usually when someone needs to be sacrificed, killed, there is usually
a very good reason, very good story, but since the author didn't
bother to communicate that reason to the reader, much less direct the
reader to the source, because there really are many, thousands of
them, the reader was left frustrated in the end, chance, never. This
knowledge is in other books--thought fragmented, and no where stated
in her story, making her use of foreshadow obsolete to the general
reader.
Again, finishing the first point, the author doesn't use enough
discrete knowledge in her story itself to allow the foreshadow that
she uses in her story to help the general reader to better understand
the ending because there are no statements to the motives of the
lottery and stoning other than mutter, and that's why a lot of readers
get frustrated, because the stoning seems senseless, cannot be
connected to anything in the story, i.e., there are no human motives
behind the death: jealousy, envy, adultery, greed, revenge, evilness,
etc. The author makes each character in the story fair and good. The
author makes it a point not to allow the reader to connect a human
motive to the stoning. And since most readers are a custom to
believing that human motives are behind everything under the sky, the
story frustrates them. There are also no connections to any
supernatural motives, i.e., ghosts, monsters, or any other imaginary
enemies, a change from the ordinary, people can't be punished for
their mistakes, because they didn't really do it, some scary monster
did, or influenced their free will to do it, a monster who also just
so happens to have human characteristics, the bad ones anyway; like a
scary monster would, poor thing, if their were such a thing, all
motives probably simple like just probably doing stuff because its
hungry and not evil, not greedy, or whatever. And, so the reader is
forced to
search for a motive in the story, since everything moves because of
humans, or stuff almost like humans, and when the motive is not there,
author not giving the reader any other solid foreshadows to any source
outside the story, the reader concludes that the story is pointless.
The motives behind killing and death, maybe even love, the issue the
author may have unintentionally raised, may very well be outside the
control and reason of man?
Now that none of the foreshadows in the story lead to any knowledge in
the story itself, providing the general reader with enough discrete
knowledge to help them understand the ending, maybe the author
provides enough solid foreshadow for a reader privy to that hint, and
its destination, to conclude the story's ending by connecting that
outside source with any the story's foreshadows? Don't think so.
Some of the public knowledge of stuff or public events surrounding the
story maybe have been used to connect the story or any of its
foreshadows by the readers to those sources but only if readers were
able to decipher the second sentence listed above in the first place,
not to mention knowing archaic punishments and rituals, which many
probably don't. Public knowledge about ancient cultures, and the
meaning of some of their rituals, is not sufficient enough for the
general reader to combine with any of the story's ambiguous
foreshadows to help them grasp the meaning of the ending. Also,
readers couldn't combine any world events with the story because there
were no strong foreshadow connections, none that I could see anyway.
The story was published June 1948. WWII was over; a nuclear bomb
detonated; Gandhi murdered; the Chinese declared a Republic; the
Israelis declared a Jewish state; Truman president; the specters of
Communism and Capitalism were rising. The author makes it a point not
to allow any reader, past or present, the ability to combine anything
in the story with outside events, at least not without strong doubt.
So, with no sufficient public knowledge in strange stuff, and no
supplemental stuff, like world event, most readers were frustrated,
maybe even scared, because the ending was senseless, senseless because
there were no strong foreshadows leading anywhere and there were no
human motives, and everything has to have a human motives, or
supernatural stuff connected to a human motive: greed, jealousy, envy,
lust, stuff like that, to be of any value right.
Before I conclude this paper, there is something that I decided not to
analyze, the author's personal life, not analyze it because my belief
that an author's life should not be needed to understand a story,
because once a story needs that, the story doesn't have a life of its
own, and anything that doesn't have a life of its own is dumb. There
are several reports that some children pelted the poor woman with some
stones, and she ran home and wrote the story, but, I don't think
that's the case, though it'd have been cool to see, most likely she
read or heard about something senseless, maybe someone dying, maybe a
couple of million people dying, and was just wanted to make sense of
it the only way she knew how--this is connected to this, maybe even
chance has something to do with it, but I don't exactly know how. Many
scholars believe murder senseless too but after awhile some of them
believe that maybe some types of murder, or killing, or
assassinations, or whatever they call it, 'the forgetting someone was
ever alive,' can make more sense than others. Willy killed the stupid
bitch because he worked to buy her 2,456 cheeseburgers, bought her
some presents too, one time a black thong or something, lost some
opportunity with other chicks, the good ones anyway, and now she
wanted to leave, go do something else, not after you die bitch for
wasting the best part of my life, or something like that, only life
right best between sixteen and thirty y/o. And Wanda, well, usually
don't kill, not killing in that way anyway, Wanda just 'forgets' about
that person and go gets fucked, sometimes over and over again. Murder
can make sense sometimes but that does not ever make it right, never.
Anyway, in conclusion, this is not a good story to give to people
because there is not enough foreshadow in the story, leading discrete
or otherwise, to prepare the reader to understand the ending. The
story itself doesn't provide enough information to the motives behind
the Lottery, and therefore the foreshadows contribute nothing to
helping the reader to understand the meaning of the ending. The world
and current events don't provide enough mainstream knowledge to its
members about the forces outside the control of man, and therefore the
vague foreshadows in the story don't help either. Miss Jackson's
personal life doesn't contribute anything to the story either. The
only way for a reader to appreciate the potential of this story, I say
potential because maybe the author didn't intent this--it's a
possibility, is to not to chase any of her foreshadows, either they're
too vague or don't lead anywhere to begin with, and conclude that the
story's potential is not in its lack of foreshadows leading to
discrete knowledge that's no where in the story or vague foreshadows
leading to 'sources' outside the story that people simply do not know
but that some endings to stories are senseless but are maybe connected
to a motive somewhere, somewhere far and strange, just not exactly
known how, or maybe, connect somehow to a place, a time, just one
person.
Work Cited:
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson