Essays on Tessie

Many authors regard their work as being a single standalone piece of art. By this logic, it can be safe to assume that the authors work their literary pieces to stand out against similar genres of works. However, in some cases many different stories end up sharing the same motif and theme. In many cases like this, it is not because of two authors collaborating to come up with a theme, or lesson, to teach society but a stroke of luck. When forming their stories, authors use society around them to develop their characters, settings, and such so in ...

Author

The author was born in 1916(she actually claimed she was born in 1919, to appear younger than her husband), in San Francisco, California. Her childhood was one of low self-esteem and a fragile sense of identity, because of her mother who verbally abused her.

Jackson attended Brighton High School in Rochester, NY, and graduated in 1934. Then, she graduated in 1940 from Syracuse University, where she studied English.

During her adult life, she was not what the society expected a “faculty wife” (she was married to a critic) should be: she drank, smoked, was interested in witchcraft and magic, was ...

Outline

a society plunges into the depths of depravity THESIS: In her short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses symbolic references to innocence, tolerance and ignorance to show how blindly following tradition leads to disaster.

I: Introduction.

II: The people’s minds are brainwashed to such an extent that they hide behind their imposed, innocent vision of life in the country, where blood sacrifices are a necessity.

A. Readers, the townspeople and the children presented the same – innocent.

B. The black box as a play thing for the townspeople, just like stones are for the children. III: The people of Jackson’s “The Lottery” are safely lulled in their ignorance and keep falsely believing ...