Stylistic Analysis of “The Lottery”

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to analyze the stylistic features of the short story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson. The author uses a third-person point of view to tell this story, with less appeal of emotion but creates an emotional impact to readers.  The story is interpreted through lexical schemes, grammar, foregrounded features, context, and cohesion, that would help comprehend the relationship of the literary tools to the meaning of the story.

Keywords: Lexis, Grammar, Foregrounded features, Context and Cohesion

INTRODUCTION

The narrator of the short story "The Lottery" started by presenting the time and date, setting, weather, and the mood of the environment. The ritual, as they call it, takes place in the summer of June 27 in a small village where all the residents gathered around. There were symbols presented at the beginning of the story but given meaning in the end.  Tessie Hutchinson is the main character of the story, but the moral of the story revolved around the residents. People seem unbothered of the immorality they’ve done annually, and the concept of “winning” was reversed.  

I. LEXIS

The vocabulary of the story is simple and straightforward. The writer plainly describes the surroundings including the people while narrating the event, and even the way everything is expressed- it is understandable because the writer uses the denotative meaning of the words. Although there were terms that sounds poetic because of the use of adjectives, which includes the introductory phrase, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green,” it still creates a direct and clear meaning to what was meant by the speaker; It was on July 27, summer and growing season wherein flowers bloom and plants grow bright green leaves, and so readers can still comprehend what is being explained.  There are no unusual words, but there were words/nouns paired with adjectives that would sound new, like “tuneless chant” that can be found in the eighth paragraph, which means a chant that is not pleasing to listen to. Adjectives occur frequently to add visuals of the subject. Also, in the tenth paragraph, there is an adverb form of good-humored which was used to describe how the people separated. The same with adjectives, adverbs occur frequently also, but to emphasize expressions/mood. Furthermore, the writer used proper names in addressing the characters, and there is a less abstract noun, which makes the story formal but at the same time terrifying. 

II. GRAMMAR

There is an interchange of communication, a dialogue form wherein each character gets the paragraph that is intended for them to share their thoughts. As for Mr. Summers, he uses the formal speech style in giving instruction and announcing the names, not to mention it is used in speaking to medium to large groups. On the other hand, the other characters used the consultative style, which is used in semi-formal communication and happens in two-way participation. All the characters did not use slang terminologies which makes the story straightforward, which on the other hand affects how the text/ideas are organized- it follows parallelism that makes the language comparatively rigid.  

III. FOREGROUNDED FEATURES (Figures of speech, etc.)

There is a pattern of sound present in most dialogues like assonance spoken by an old man Warner: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”, “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery.” Also, he throws a hyperbolic expression when he snorted, “pack of crazy fools,” which is later followed by an ironic expression “pack up young fools.” Simply means that people who stop doing the ritual are fools, which on the other side, is the smartest thing to do to survive. Mrs. Delacroix's statement to Mrs. Graves is also a hyperbole: "Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries anymore." Clearly, the story has a lot of ironies, even the concept of the title “The lottery.” Winning is an achievement and not a loss, but in the story, it is the other way around. That is why people don’t want to win because they don’t want to die, yet they still join the ritual.

IV. CONTEXT AND COHESION

The texts contain logical or other links between sentences like “and, or, but.”  Also, there was no sign of ellipsis, but there are common nouns that give readers an idea of whose view of the thing/person they are getting. The meaning connections are made employing lexical repetition or by the frequent use of words from the same semantic field. For example,

"Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. "Seventy-seventh time."

"Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it's you," Mr. Summers said in explanation, "and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that's you, too. Right?" then Bill Hutchinson said, "Right"

It's not the way it used to be." Old Man Warner said clearly. "People ain't the way they used to be."

The writer addresses the reader directly through the simplicity of the words, direct presentation of dialogue, and fewer literary expressions that would tell the feelings of the author and the characters within the story. The author tends to place everything forthright and undemanding of dictionaries, but at the same time creates an image and make it sound like a cold, emotionless, and terrifying story, which on the other hand, hard to sense the author’s attitude to her subject because there is fewer to no punctuation marks and abstract terms that would determine the characters’ feelings. The meaning relies on how the readers would react if they were in the shoe of the characters. Furthermore, the point of view of the story is third-person omniscient, since the narrator is the one explaining every detail of what is going on with the characters within the story. Besides, the narrator is not included in any events. Also, through stating the names of the character by the narrator, the readers would know who is speaking.