Use Of Irony In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

In her short story, “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson, an American writer, tells a story of people gathering in a small town for an annual lottery, where children are playing with stones and adults are sharing stories about farming. Yet, the sunny and happy opening scene has a twisted shocking ending, as the lottery in the story does not involve winning a prize, but losing a life. Irony is an underlying theme that is used throughout the story. Irony is referring to a person, situation, or circumstance that is different than it would actually seem. Jackson led the reader to interpret the story in different way through his use of an ironic title “The Lottery” that many people knows as winning a prize or millions of dollars. However, the lottery
For example, Mr. Summers who is “round-faced, jovial man,” (Jackson 1) he is the mayor of the town and runs the successful coal business in the town. Mr. Summers has a charming name that illustrates the setting of the annual lottery that takes place in every summer. When the reader thinks of summer, he or she thinks of pleasantness and happiness, but Mr. Summers name is ironic as he contributes in killing the people of the town. All the villagers wait for him to declare the opening of the lottery, as he makes the split papers and puts them in the black box. He does not care about the people’s fear of picking a paper or who will be stoned; the only thing that he cares about is his work: “Guess we better get started, get this over with, so we can go back to work” (Jackson 2). Mr. Summers lives in a work environment full of money, but he lacks emotions as he had no children or wife: “people were sorry for him, because he had no children and his wife was a scold” (Jackson 1). His empty life that lacks happiness leads him to search for pleasure even if it is through killing people. Mr. Summers’ name that represents happiness does not reflect his personality that is full of power and
The reader is able to feel engaged; as Jackson created a pleased and happy picture in the title, setting and characters of the story. She leads the reader to think the villagers were like every other day celebrating an annual lottery. Yet, as she explained the true meaning of the lottery in the village, she was able to engage the reader in the story by asking questions and make expectations about the ending of the story. Jackson leaves the readers with a great theme with a lesson to any society at any time