The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

This short story takes place in a small village of 300 people, where everyone is assembled in the central square for the lottery. Every head of family gets to draw a paper from the box, and the family with the black-dotted paper is chosen. Every member of that family has to draw another time, and the person with the black-dotted paper "wins": they get stoned to death by their fellow villagers.

A large controversy surrounded "The Lottery". The magazine in which it was published lost hundreds of subscriptions, and the author received a lot of letters from angry or disgusted readers. It was listed in the 30 most often banned books in America in 1984.

The names in the story all have a specific signification and are very ironic. For example, Mr Summers is the one bringing the bad news, Delacroix is the one throwing the biggest stone and Martin refers to apes!

Poetic devices

• Connotation


• Denotation


• Figures of speech ( simile, metaphore, personification, apostrophe, hyperbole, oxymoron)


• imagery


• Symbolism


• Antithesis

• Euphony


• Cacophony


• Alliteration


• Onomatopoeia


• Rhyme


• Assonance


• Consonance

Hills like White Elephants

*white elephant = expensive & useless

1. Introduction

• The story was published in 1927 by Ernest Hemingway.
• ingenious symbolism
• powerful dialogue
• Iceberg theory*

2. Plot summary

• Jig is pregnant
• Takes place in Spain
• read between the lines, they are talking about Jig's upcoming abortion
• Mostly dialogues
• Takes place in about 40 minutes

3. Themes and recurring elements

• Alcohol is present thorought the entire story, whether it is 'to try new things' or just to survive to the oppressive heat (beer)
• could be because of the uneasiness due to the choice she has to make
• Abortion
• Romantic relationship : mature/lasting (woman) or fleeting/sex (man)
• Responsibility / hedonism

4. Symbolism and setting

• landscape: on one side of the tracks it is green and fertile, and on the other it is brown and dry.
• the hills could represent the hills of the pregnant woman, with the huge belly
• white elephant means something expensive and useless, or also a sign of something good to happen. two sides of the same story
• train station: the characters could go their separate ways, or continue on the same train together.
• Jig: jig is a dance / slang word for sex... she is a sex object for him
• for the man, the baby is a white elephant
• 2 bags, 2 pads, 2 drinks, 2 tracks, 2 people... three's a crowd

5. Dialogue

• Very simple dialogues... have to read between the lines
• never explicit

"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing."

Amazingly well-said

Cat on a hot tin roof: Nov 11-12-13

1- Where and when does the story take place?
2- Who are the characters?
3- What is their relationship?
4- What is the mood of the scene?
5- What and whom are they talking about?

• Setting: Place (geographical) & Time (Historical)
• Characterization
• Dramatic Tension
• Plot dialogue

Questions on Study Guide

Context: Write short answers.
What kind of family did Tennessee Williams (TW) have?
Where does his first name come from?
What is the Pulitzer Prize?
How was the original play changed for both Broadway and the cinema?
How did TW die?
What was the new American drama that TW represented?

Plot Overview: Put the events in the correct order.
Maggie confesses to making love with Skipper. _____
The family gets together with Mama and talks of Big Daddy’s cancer._____
Big Daddy asks Brick about his drinking problem. _____
Maggie says the Brick’s brother and wife are plotting to take all the inheritance. _____
Maggie announces that she’s pregnant. _____
Maggie talks about Brick and Skipper’s love for each other. _____
We learn that Brick injured his ankle. _____
Big Daddy enters the room. _____
Brick says that the relationship with Skipper was pure. _____

Character List: Write down all the adjectives used to describe each character. Find the definition of the words you don’t know.

Margaret: (Maggy) hard, nervous, bitchy, lonely and gorgeous (CAT)
Brick: alcoholis, masculine, suppressed homosexual, broken
Big Daddy: (B's father and M's father-in-law) large, brash (agressive), vulgar, fat, redneck, rich
Big Mama: fat, crude, earnest (sincere), dedicated to BD
Mae: (B's sister-in-law, Gooper's husband) mean, agitated, scheming (conspiring)
Gooper:(B's older brother) successful lawyer, eldest son, less loved than B, resentful, only educated one, ruthless (mean)
Reverend Tucker:
Doctor Baugh:
The children:

Analysis of Major Characters:
Why is Maggie the most interesting character?
What does Brick’s injury represent?
Why does Maggie call Big Daddy a “redneck’?
What does Mama desperately want?

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols:
What was American society’s view of homosexuality at the time?
What are the two “lies” in the play?
What does the image of the “cat” represent?
What is Big Daddy’s narcissistic love for Brick?
What do the children represent?

Symbols:What do these three things symbolize?
- Bed
- Console
- Crutch