Ismael, Zaid Ibrahim, and Sabah Atallah Khalifa Ali. “Human Rights at Stake: Shirley Jackson’s Social and Political Protest in ‘The Lottery.’” International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, vol. 7, no. 6, 2018, pp. 28-36. doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.6p.28.
In this article, the authors focus on Shirley Jackson’s interest in human rights and their violation in a civilized society. Ismael and Ali examine the author’s humane message of the rights of people to live in peace from the perspective of the Holocaust. The story was written after World War II, so the images of murder and mass destruction were still fresh in human memories. Ismael and Ali conclude that Jackson’s message was misinterpreted by the early readers. However, the themes of inequality and dignity of women in a patriarchal society are evident today. This source can be used to address Jackson’s message and analyze the story through the lens of political and social criticism.
Nugraha, Intan Siti, and Sutiono Mahdi. “Transitivity System on Building Character of Mr. Summers in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.” A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 7, no. 1, 2020, pp. 35-43.
Nugraha and Mahdi address Jackson’s story using the transitivity system of the Systemic Functional Linguistic approach. They describe the author’s choice of words and phrases for the construction of her main character, Mr. Summers. The researchers argue that Mr. Summers is mostly associated with verbal and material processes, which characterize him as an active “sayer” who has a strong impact on his audience (39). The character is also goal-oriented, and the words associated with the material process confirm this statement. The authors conclude that Jackson dominantly utilizes verbal processes to create the characters’ identities through their verbiage. This source can be used to analyze the short story from the perspective of linguistics.
Robinson, Michael. “Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Holocaust Literature.” Humanities, vol. 8, no. 25, 2019, pp. 1-20. doi:10.3390/h8010035.
Robinson examines Jackson’s short story through the lens of literature, philosophy, and anthropology. Each of these approaches explores “The Lottery” from the perspectives of the Holocaust, scapegoating, and anti-Semitism. The author argues that Jackson’s depiction of death selection can be related to the Holocaust discourse. Robinson adds that “The Lottery” reveals the themes of Nazi genocide and ethnic cleansing through imaginative abstraction. The author also reads Jackson’s story in terms of patriarchal power structures. Although Jackson did not identify herself as a feminist, her judgment of gender inequality is evident in the story. Robinson concludes that “The Lottery” was mistakenly read as an ahistorical novel while it should be examined through the lens of the Holocaust and its impact on literature. This article is useful for the analysis of Jackson’s short story because it reveals its historical context and explains why it should not be regarded only as a feminist horror tale.
Rubenstein, Roberta, and Ruth Franklin. “Writer, Housewife, Witch.” The Women’s Review of Books, vol. 34, no. 3, 2017, pp. 18–19. JSTOR.
The author of this article, Roberta Rubenstein, is a professor of Literature at American University. She reviews Franklin’s book, dedicated to Jackson’s biography as a writer, housewife, and witch. In this review, the author examines deep connections between Jackson’s life and the literary subjects in her short story. For example, her husband Hyman continued to see other women without any guilt when they get married (18). Such an attitude to his wife can be identified with the themes of gender inequality and female dignity in Jackson’s story. Another interesting fact from Jackson’s life is that she earned more money than her husband, but he controlled her and forced her to write more novels for money (19). This and many other biographical moments can be used for the analysis of Jackson’s literary works in general and “The Lottery” in particular.
Sari, Fani Alfionita, and Ajar PradikaAnanta Tur. “Reshaping the Society Face through the Culture of Horror Told in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.” Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-7.
This article focuses on the perlocutionary acts used by Jackson’s characters in her short story “The Lottery.” Sari and Tur utilize the descriptive qualitative method to examine the sense of the culture of horror stories through the lens of such acts. Perlocutionary acts are acts of speaking or writing, the aim of which is to persuade or convince somebody. The authors analyze each conversation in the story to identify whether it has an implicit meaning or not. The results of the study show that the goals of perlocutionary acts were to convince, persuade, deter, surprise, and mislead the characters in order to emphasize the horrific violence in the story. This source can be used to analyze Jackson’s story from the perspectives of linguistics and culture.