Quotation Form (Woked with Danny Schwantes and John Dereszynski)

     In Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," irony is illustrated through the community event of the lottery.  In this unnamed town, the people have a mandatory lottery. Initially, the reader begins to assume that the lottery is an event where something is won, but as the story progresses, one realizes that the lottery is a death sentence.  At the beginning of the story the lottery seems like a good event to attend, the kids are playing outside the men are gathered talking about  taxes and farming etc. "some boys soon followed his example, gathering the smoothest and roundest stones." We notice that they are gathering stones for something, but we don't know yet. We just assume that it's a nice day, and people are gathering together, to have some type of lottery, but we do not know what that is yet. Later we realize the stones are for something much worse than we anticipated. "The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready." We then come to the conclusion that the stones and lottery have to deal with a yearly sacrificing. In conclusion we can tell that this is no ordinary lottery, and you most certainly do NOT want to win, but it is a tradition in that village, but they don't notice the harm it does to others.