The Irony of the Story free essay sample

The story titled The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson is an interesting story with an unpredictable ending. The story tells us about a tradition in a small town which is held every year. The tradition is called ‘the lottery’ where the ‘winner’ will be stoned to death. Actually it is a horrible tradition, but in the story it is considered usual, and even acceptable in the society. There are several irony that we can see in the story according to that ‘scapegoat’ tradition. One of the irony is the atmosphere in the town when the lottery is held. The author describes the situation that is â€Å"†¦clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day, the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. † (Page 357). That kind of situation is contradictory with the fact that there is someone will be put to death by the town’s people that day. We will write a custom essay sample on The Irony of the Story or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The atmosphere should be sad or gloomy. Moreover, the person who will be put to death could be one of their families. Another irony is seen in the way the people behave. †¦, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones;†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husband† (Page 358). Those two sentences in the story show fun and happy condition, although they actually know what they are going to do next (which is killing somebody). We can see another irony in the sentence one of the characters say, â€Å"Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more. Seems like we got through with the last one only last week† (Page 361). The sentence shows that the people are excited with the tradition so they always look forward to it. And it also show that the people in that town are immoral and do not have the feeling of humanity. Another irony is shown in the sentence â€Å"Nancy and Bill, Jr. opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads† (Page 363). That condition is weird because they should be sad because one of their families will be put to death, but on the contrary, they are relieved and happy another person have the marked paper. The sentence â€Å"Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Page 363) also shows irony because it seems that she really enjoy doing assassination, although it is her own friend and they are just having a joke a couple hours ago. Another sentence â€Å"†¦, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles. † (Page 364) infer that the tradition should be done by all of the member of the society, including the children. The irony is that sentence shows how the grown up teach the children to slay a human; furthermore, the person who has been slay is Mrs. Hutchinson, his own mother. From the one whole story there are another irony. We can see it from the title, the point of view, the diction, and the plot itself. From the title ‘The Lottery’, it is an irony because lottery refers to something which is good, because usually if we win a lottery we will get prizes or money, but lottery in this story is different because the winner will be sentence to death. The winner is actually not win but lost. 1 From the point of view we can see the irony, because from the third point of view, the readers are not know about what will happen in the end of the story, because the readers can not know what the characters think or what is in their mind. It makes the outcome of the story really surprising. From the diction we can see the author is use words which are represented happiness and a normal every day life of people, and it really contradict with the actual situation in the story. 1 From the plot we can also see the irony, how the story is build from the beginning (happy, summer time) until the end of the story which shows the irony of the story (the horrible tradition; killing people). In conclusion, ‘The Lottery’ is an ironical story. It has a very surprising ending, but not too good ending actually. Overall, I like the story.