Preparing to Write a Literary Analysis

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Read Burns’s synopsis; read Burns’s paraphrase.

As Jonathan Burns first read “The Lottery,” he was carried along to the startling ending. Then he reread to understand the story well enough to identify and analyze elements such as setting, character, or tone. He began turning understanding into text by writing a synopsis to clarify the literal events in the story. Summing up events immediately suggested writing about the story’s undertone of violence, but he decided that it would be hard to write about something so subtle.

Then he considered the characters in the story, especially Mr. Summers, Tessie Hutchinson, or the memorable Old Man Warner. Burns experimented by paraphrasing Old Man Warner’s comments from one paragraph. But he decided not to focus on the characters because he couldn’t think of more than the vague statement that they were memorable. He considered other elements—language, symbols, ambiguity, foreshadowing—and dismissed each in turn. All of a sudden, he hit on the surprise ending. How did Jackson manipulate all the details to generate such a shock?

For more on seeking motives of characters, see Finding Ideas in Ch. 19.

To focus his thinking, he brainstormed for possible essay titles about the ending: Death Comes as a Surprise, The Unsuspected Finish, and his straightforward choice “The Hidden Truth.” After reviewing his notes, Burns realized that Jackson uses characterization, symbolism, and ambiguous description to build up to the ending. He listed details under those three headings to plan his paper informally:

Title: The Hidden Truth

For more on stating a thesis, organizing ideas, and outlining, see Ch. 20.

Working Thesis: In “The Lottery” Jackson effectively crafts a shock ending.

  1. Characterization that contributes to the shock ending

    • The children of the village

    • The adults of the village

    • Conversations among the villagers

  2. Symbols that contribute to the shock ending

    • The stones

    • The black box

  3. Ambiguous description that contributes to the shock ending

    • The word “lottery”

    • Comments: “clean forgot,” “wish they’d hurry,” “It isn’t fair.”

    • Actions: relief, suspense

For more on introductions, see Writing an Opening in Ch. 21.

Then he drafted the following introduction:

Unsuspecting, the reader follows Shirley Jackson’s softly flowing tale of a rural community’s timeless ritual, the lottery. Awareness of what is at stake—the savage murder of one random member—comes slowly. No sooner does the realization set in than the story is over. It is a shock ending.

What creates the shock that the reader experiences reading “The Lottery”? Jackson carefully produces this effect, using elements such as language, symbolism, and characterization to lure the reader into not anticipating what is to come.

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With his synopsis, his paraphrase, his plan, his copy of the story, and this starting point, Burns revised the introduction and wrote his essay.