Situational Irony In The Lottery

It is through great suspense and irony that Shirley Jackson tells the story of a lottery in a small town. The result of the lottery is also left open to be interpreted by the reader. All this could not be done without the use of the third person objective point of view in which the story ,“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is told.
Shirley Jackson uses situational irony as well as verbal irony to keep the readers on their toes and especially to keep the ending a surprise. Achieving this irony would be very difficult if she didn’t choose to write the story in a third person objective point of view. It’s important that we don’t know what any of the characters are thinking otherwise we would realize that the “lottery” really isn’t a traditional
One could look at the lottery as being tradition or maybe making an offering to gods in order to have a good growing season, and it isn’t that bad of a thing.. Someone could also look at it the opposite way and that it’s an awful thing and they are murdering people. If the story in a different point of view such as first or third then the way the characters whom thoughts we were reading could influence our own thoughts on the lottery. For example if we got a first person point of view from someone in the crowd who thinks the lottery is a great thing and benefits the community than you may overlook the event. If you got a different variation of third person and the character or characters thoughts you were reading were about how awful the lottery was then you too would think it was a terrible event.
The third person objective point of view that author, Shirley Jackson, chose to write the story in let have many more elements in her story than another point of view would have. The point of view was responsible for adding suspense and different types of irony to the story. It also allowed the reader to interpret the story how they want to without having a biased look on the