A Criticism Of Essay, Research Paper
Due to the lack of conflict and decision in The Lottery many readers will find the plot uninteresting, but at the same time the story is influential for each of its readers. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, prominent figures for the school of New Criticism, compare The Lottery to a fable and a parable because of its lack of characterization and broad pattern (250). The author tries to portray The Lottery as just a fiction piece even though the resemblance of the story being a fable or a parable is there (Brooks and Warren 250).
The Lottery shows how much humans try and find a scapegoat and then how humans take out all of their built up anger and insecurities on the actually scapegoat. An example of this is when an accusation about a man s evil patriotism gets his innocent wife stoned to death by her neighbors (Brooks and Warren 251). The author didn t only focus on use of scapegoats in the story. The author also seemed to focus on how kind and thoughtful the neighbors try to act yet they are
Finally, the author has done a very good job of making the reader shape his or her attitude so the reader will take the ending of the story a certain way. Everything in the story is made to make the reader feel that the actually lottery is perfectly credible , but by the time the reader reaches the actual awful reality of it all he or she is in true shock. This also shows the reader how each story has two-sides (Brooks and Warren 251).
Works Cited
Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1999. 74-79
Brooks, Cleanth. et al. The Lottery. Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1959. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Votteler, Thomas. et al. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale, 1992. 2 50-252.