Essay on The Lottery and What A Thought -- Shirley Jackson Lottery Ess

Comparing The Lottery and What A Thought    The short stories I have chosen were "The Lottery" and "What A Thought" by Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is considered a morbid writer due to the fact that she writes her stories with the intent to shock her readers into seeing the truth behind human nature. Her work deals with an evil presence in everyday life. "The Lottery" is a chilling tale of an everyday town and their annual lottery. It shows how cruel a town can be in protecting their tradition and rituals and how not even friendship matters. The second, being found in a collection of 50 short stories found after Jackson's death, shows how quickly a wife of many years can turn on her husband without warning. Both stories contained strong imagery and foreshadowing events leading up to the climax. "The Lottery" was written shortly after World War II, however it is unknown as to when Jackson wrote "What A Thought".      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "The Lottery" and "What A Thought" follow Shirley Jackson's usual scheme of shock value. Both stories show of how quickly, no matter what length of time people have coincided together and bonded together, one can turn on another. "The Lottery" showed of how a small everyday town will do anything to hold their traditional values. The town believed that they had to make a human sacrifice to the land in order to have good crops. Therefore every year they held a lottery to find out who the sacrifice would be. In the story "What A Thought" a husband who would do absolutely anything to keep his wife happy was brutally killed just because that is the way his wife felt on that day. These are things that tie in... ...mmer is associated with life, not death. In "What A Thought" the husband is almost perfect. Who would ever want to kill the perfect husband? Just moments before the terrible thoughts the wife was feeling pride for her husband who never did things like sleep after dinner as most men do. How her husband would do anything for her and yet without wanting to kill him, she had the longing to do so.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Shirley Jackson definitely can prove a point. She uses great foreshadowing, irony and symbolism shown in both of these stories. Her style is unique to other writers but does not differ much within her own writings. "The Lottery" and "What A Thought" were very good selections for me to chose because they held great meaning behind dark story lines. I look forward to reading more of her work and researching her character.