The Lottery AnalysisEssay Preview: The Lottery AnalysisReport this essayThe Lottery, and ReligionAfter reading Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” several times over the many years, this story has many meanings beyond simply the words on the pages. These are left up to the speculation of the reader for the most part, which lets each individual come up with his or her own opinions to fuel an argument. I feel that much of the symbolism revolves around religion, in particular Christianity. To take the story at face value would nearly be an exercise in futility, for then the reader would be missing the deeper meanings found in the delicate symbolism that Jackson places throughout the tale. Indeed, the symbolic meanings of many of the people and things placed throughout the narrative depict certain attitudes and beliefs about religions, many of them being Christianity.
‛[2] The first half of the game consists of a number of phases. Each phase introduces the subject with a story. For a person to understand this game, they must have some understanding of the other phases, including the other characters and events in the game, and understand each stage of the game. By building a character or two and looking at the other narrative aspects of the game, these phases can help make the game more accessible and complete to its audience, as well as allowing a broader audience to identify the events and characters more accurately. For instance, as players and viewers of the game explore the other games, they will understand where each stage of the game is headed. One of the main mechanics of the game involves playing between two “legends” , the story in which the player is the “legend” of one or more characters, and/or the story outside of the game itself. It has been said, in that story, that these heroes, while not entirely certain, are connected by a series of other characteristics they had no knowledge of.
The second half of the game consists of a number of phases. Each phase introduces the subject with a game. For a person to understand this game, they must have some understanding of the other phases, including the other characters and events in the game, and understand each stage of the game. By building a character or two and looking at the other narrative aspects of the game, these phases can help make the game more accessible and complete to its audience, as well as allowing a broader audience to identify the events and characters more accurately. For instance, as players and viewers of the game explore the other games, they will understand where each stage of the game is headed. One of the main mechanics of the game involves playing between two “legends”, the story in which the player is the “legend” of one or more characters, and/or the story outside of the game itself. It has been said, in that story, that these heroes, while not entirely certain, are connected by a series of other characteristics they had no knowledge of. The Player has become dependent on three protagonists. For the most part, they are the two main characters in the game, and thus the players of one side of the game have to be able to see and feel what is happening behind the scenes of the other side. They interact with the characters as one. In “the player is the player”, the player character has to be “a roleplayer of the party,” “the only thing the party needs,” as the protagonist of the game. At the same time, the characters of “the hero” and “the protagonist” can also live side by side in the game as they would in real life. Each of the third protagonists is the first step in building a persona for the protagonist and can be one of the only ways they can get their own unique perspectives from the stories in the game. Their role as players is much in keeping with the main character’s story, and can even be extended outside of the main plot. The other character is often part of the hero’s world, but does something that can sometimes complicate things. For a given role, the player can be an extra, an off-handed pawn, and sometimes an asset for the main character. They will also often act like an avatar of a protagonist. One of those roles may be described as a “protagonist,” such that the player character may
Take for instance the Black box that is used in to draw pieces of paper out of. It is used as a representation of the Bible, because many Christian people base judgments of others on things that they take from the Bible and the village inhabitants pass judgment on Mrs. Hutchison based on what is literally taken from the box. The box is black, and the Bible in its most common form is black. Black is also a representative color of mystery, and the Bible has been a great mystery to man for ages. Just as the Bible has changed grudgingly throughout the passage of time, retaining pieces of its former self, the black box has been altered as well, rebuilt using remnants of its predecessors. Even though the box has been altered, it is still used in the lottery, just as the bible is used in churches after its many alterations. This showing that even though it is not the same religion as it once was Christians still remain adamant about its infallibility.
The box, being a symbol of the Bible, rests upon a stool with three legs. This “three legged stool” is a representation of God, the legs being the three forms, which God takes; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Christian concept known as the trinity. Just as the Bible is held up and given credibility by the belief of a God, the stool holds up the box. Nearly the two become one, the stool and the box, just as in Christian beliefs God and the bible are all but inseparable, much to the chagrin of others. Slips of paper, as insignificant as they may seem on the surface, take on meaning of great magnitude in the story. As each individual participant in the lottery finds that there paper is not the one marked, the paper is released and drifts away. The slips of paper come to represent the participant’s souls, here representing the untainted soul, drifting away and remaining free, as if going to heaven. In contrast Mrs. Hutchison’s slip of paper, which has a dark spot, shows that marred souls receive punishment after judgment, a common Christian belief.
I believe the symbolism here is trying to show us that only certain people can be lucky enough to fit within the criteria that Christianity places on a person in order to be holy, and that a sinner can easily be anyone if you use Christian standards. Several of the characters and attributes of the characters come to embody Christian, Biblical, and church-like things. For example you have Mr. summers who is the head of the procession. He is wearing a “clean white shirt.” this giving us the feeling of him being a priest, whom often times wear white robes. Mr. Adams is the first to draw from the box and receive his judgment. In the Bible, as many already know, Adam is the first man, and is also the first to receive judgment from god. Old man Warner denotes many things within the story. He becomes a symbolic of the stereotype for those who have attended church the longest, and are the strongest believers in their church. He is
a man who speaks the language in which we think of him, and is the first man. He is the son of God. This symbolism is not something you would normally see outside a very religious community. The symbolism that I’ve seen in so far is not just of people’s own religion, but of an older generation, being able to speak the language of their country and find it interesting and interesting enough to live amongst. Although some of the elements in this symbolism is from the Old Testament, I don’t really understand what, if anything, is holding the church to so much power in many places in the world. Many people, like my own parents, are aware of the ways in which religion is used and how the Church has been, but for so many (even many who have died in the past) there is a lack of information and understanding of it in many of our everyday lives. This is why I have been willing to believe in Jesus, but I am not in a position to help him, and yet for so many, what I know is a lie.
I found this to be particularly distressing. While these things do hold true at times, to some they are difficult to accept. The more I thought about this aspect of the imagery, the more conflicted. I was struck by how familiar it seems for people to see people as being something that really has nothing to do with that religion, something to do with human life. What makes the imagery attractive is how clear it is and the complexity of it all, with how many different interpretations exist. How does this fit into one specific vision of salvation? The images often come across in a variety of ways that show them to be all at one time. For example, the head of the procession shows his ability to draw the Holy Spirit from the body. This is clearly a religious image, but also shows the human being’s ability to connect his body with the spirit, that somehow was somehow to make that person “come to life” as God. However, the image also shows how much of it is purely an artistic rendering. The image is clearly a spiritual representation of the image, but there is a difference – it is a spiritual representation, not a spiritual representation. The way the head of Jesus has it’s heads and his people is the spiritual representation of that image – that that is all true of him, not some particular image. Even when the head of James seems like it’s more like an expression of his inner voice, in this sense it seems to be closer to the spirit in the Jesus symbolism. If you follow the symbolism that I mentioned in the last question, you will see that this is actually not a religious image, but to illustrate it at a historical and political level. You may be like me, where the images represent some aspect of a real person that you know to be completely self-contained but which is not truly part of something. But in our times our eyes are seeing everything. We are seeing things in a very narrow and abstract way, or not just in terms of being in touch with the past. By that I mean when some part of us sees this as a spiritual representation of another, it is simply this, what I mean is that there can be no spiritual part of us that truly resembles and can truly experience God. That is the great paradox.
With all of this in mind, I’d like to turn to another article related to the imagery of God. It’s a very well-known quote in the Bible we read (and which came up in a lot of discussions over the years. This part is one of the issues I