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Perfect Rhyme
A perfect rhyme is a case in which two words rhyme in such a way that their
final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical e.g. sight and light,
right and might, rose and dose etc.
General Rhyme
Bottle and fiddle, cleaver and silver, patter and pitter etc. are examples
of syllabic rhyme i.e. words having a similar sounding last syllable but
without a stressed vowel
Wing and caring, sit and perfect, reflect and subject etc, are examples
of imperfect rhyme i.e. a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed
syllable.
Assonance or Slant Rhyme exists in words having the same vowel
sound e.g. kill and bill, wall and hall, shake and hate etc.
Consonance exist in words having the same consonant sound
e.g. rabbit and robber, ship andsheep
Alliteration or Head Rhyme refers to matching initial consonant
sounds e.g. sea and seal, ship and short etc.
Eye Rhymes
Example #1
Classification: Tail Rhyme
This is the most common type of rhyme. It occurs in the final syllable of
a verse or line.
Example #2
Classification: Internal Rhyme
This is a type of rhyme in which a word at the end of a verse rhymes with
another word in the same line.
Example #3
“In Ayrshire hill areas, a cruise, eh, lass?”
“Inertia, hilarious, accrues, hélas!”
Classification: Holo-rhyme
This is a type of rhyme in which all the words of two entire lines rhyme.
Example #4
Classification: Cross rhyme
This refers to matching sounds at the end of intervening lines.
Function of Rhyme
As discussed above, a rhyme serves two distinct functions in the art of writing
poetry:
W.H Auden gives his views on the function of rhyme and other tools
of prosody saying that these are like servants that a master uses in the ways
he wants
RHYME
Definition of Rhyme
Rhyme is a popular literary device in which the repetition of the same or similar
sounds occurs in two or more words, usually at the end of lines in poems or songs. In
a rhyme in English, the vowel sounds in the stressed syllables are matching, while the
preceding consonant sound does not match. The consonants after the stressed syllables
must match as well. For example, the words “gaining” and “straining” are rhyming
words in English because they start with different consonant sounds, but the first
stressed vowel is identical, as is the rest of the word.
Types of Rhyme
There are many different ways to classify rhyme. Many people recognize “perfect
rhymes” as the only real type of rhyme. For example, “mind” and “kind” are perfect
rhymes, whereas “mind” and “line” are an imperfect match in sounds. Even within the
classification of “perfect” rhymes, there are a few different types:
Single: This is a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words
(“mind” and “behind”).
Double: This perfect rhyme has the stress on the penultimate, or second-to-last,
syllable (“toasting” and “roasting”).
Dactylic: This rhyme, relatively uncommon in English, has the stress on the
antepenultimate, or third-from-last, syllable (“terrible” and “wearable”).
Here are some other types of general rhymes that are not perfect:
Imperfect or near rhyme: In this type of rhyme, the same sounds occur in two
words but in unstressed syllables (“thing” and “missing”).
Identical rhymes: Homonyms in English don’t satisfy the rules of perfect
rhymes because while the vowels are matching, the preceding consonants also
match and therefore the rhyme is considered inferior. For example, “way,”
“weigh,” and “whey” are identical rhymes and are not considered to be good
rhymes. However, in French, this type of rhyming is actually quite popular and
has its own classification, rime riche.
Eye rhyme: This is common in English because so many of our words are
spelled in the same way, yet have different pronunciations. For example, “good”
and food” look like they should rhyme, but their vowel sounds are different.
There are also many conjugate words that we use in English that are rhymes, such as
the following:
Hokey-pokey
Namby-pamby
Itsy-bitsy
Teenie-weenie
Silly-billy
Children’s songs and poems often contain rhymes, as they make lines easier to
remember and pleasant to listen to. The famous children’s author Dr. Seuss made
much use of rhyme in his books, such as the following lines:
You have brains in your head; you have feet in your shoes. You can steer
yourself any direction you choose.
And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed).
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.
♦
♦
♦
Significance of Rhyme in Literature
Rhyme has played a huge part in literature over many millennia of human existence.
The earliest known example is from a Chinese text written in the 10 th century BC.
Indeed, rhyme has been found in many cultures and many eras. Rhyme also plays
different parts in different cultures, holding almost mystical meaning in some cultures.
Several religious texts display examples of rhyme, including the Qur’an and the Bible.
Interestingly, though, rhyme schemes go in and out of favor. The types of poetry that
were once popular in the English language, especially, are no longer very common.
For example, in Shakespeare’s day the sonnet form, with its rhyming quatrains and
final rhyming couplet was popular (indeed, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets himself).
However, it is very unusual for contemporary poets to adhere to such strict rhyme
schemes.
Rhyme is often easy for native speakers in a language to hear. It is used as a literacy
skill with young children for them to hear phonemes. Authors often use rhyme to
make their lines more memorable and to signal the ends of lines.
William Shakespeare includes many rhyme examples in his plays. All of his sonnets
followed the very strict sonnet form of containing three rhyming quatrains and one
final rhyming couplet. The above excerpt comes from arguably his most famous
sonnet, “Sonnet 18.” The opening line is familiar to many English speakers. It is just
one of hundreds of examples of rhyme in his works. One interesting note is that due to
the way that the sound of English has changed over the past four to five hundred
years, some of Shakespeare’s rhymes no longer are perfect rhymes, such as the rhyme
between “temperate” and “date.” However, it is easy to hear countless examples of
rhymes in his works, such as the words “day” and “May” in this excerpt.
Example #2
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells–
Of the bells, bells, bells–
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells–
Bells, bells, bells–
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Edgar Allen employed rhyme in many of his poems. In “The Bells,” Poe uses rhyme
not only to end lines, but also in the middle of lines, such as his rhyme of “rolling”
and “tolling,” in the middle of two adjacent lines. He also uses the rhyme of
“moaning” and “groaning” in the same line. This example of rhyme adds to
the rhythm of the poem in that it impels the reader forward, just as the tolling of the
bells compels the listener to act.
Example #3
Fate hired me once to play a villain’s part.
I did it badly, wasting valued blood;
Now when the call is given to the good
It is that knave who answers in my heart.
Stanley Kunitz had an interesting career in poetry. He was born in 1905 and died in
2006; his poetry changed with the times, paralleling the popularity of strict forms in
his early work while his later work was only written in free verse. This short poem,
“Between the Acts” was published in 1943 and is still indicative of the first half of his
career in which rhyme played a large part. However, he was already turning toward
more free verse and less rhyme at this time. In this poem Kunitz rhymes “part” with
“heart,” but also uses the near-rhyme “blood” and “good,” which can also be
considered an eye rhyme.
Example #4
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Robert Frost is similar to Stanley Kunitz in that he used examples of rhyme in some of
his poetry while in others he forewent rhyme altogether. Many of his most famous
poems, such as “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Fire and Ice,” and “The
Road Not Taken” all contain rhyme. However, other famous poems such as “Mending
Wall” and “Birches” do not contain rhyme. In this excerpt, Frost rhymes the words
“know,” “though,” and “snow.”
♦
♦
♦
Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Debbie Notari
In this lesson, we will explore the idea of rhythm, or beat, in poetry. Every poem that is not free
verse has a type of rhythm. We also call that rhythm 'meter.' Rhythm is an important part of the
structure of a poem.
Definition of Rhythm
What is rhythm in poetry? Think of a song you like. What is it about that song that makes you
tap your feet or want to dance? It is the rhythm of the song. In a similar way, all poems that are
not written in free verse have rhythm, or a beat, as well. We also call that beat meter. Each
specific syllable in a line of poetry is called a foot. This is also referred to as a unit of meter.
Types of Meter
There are five main types of beats, or meter, that we use in poetry. Here, we will take a brief
look at each type. In poetry, rhythm is expressed through stressed and unstressed syllables.
Take the word, poetry, for example. The first syllable is stressed, and the last two are
unstressed, as in PO-e-try. Here are the most common types of meter in the English language:
1. Iamb: The Iamb is a pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed
syllable, as in the word: en-JOY.
2. Trochee: The trochee is one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable, as in
the word: CON-quer.
3. Spondee: Spondee is a pattern of two stressed syllables in poetry. The pattern may
cross over from word to word in a poem. An example of spondee might be: GO! GO!
Both 1-syllable words are stressed.
4. Anapest: The anapest is a combination of two unstressed syllables followed by one
stressed syllable. Take this phrase: to the NORTH. The first two syllables are unstressed,
while the final syllable is stressed.
5. Dactyl: The dactyl is the opposite of the anapest, in that it has one stressed syllable
followed by two unstressed syllables as in the phrase: FLY a-way.
These metrical units, or feet, make up the beat or rhythm of poetry. Now let's take a look at
how rhythm is used in actual poems.
Rhythm in Poetry
We will take a look at two poems, and analyze them for meter in order to discover their rhythm.
The first poem is by Emily Dickinson, entitled 'Will There Really Be a Morning?'
The speaker in the poem is feeling despair and wondering if there will be a 'morning', or hope,
again. It takes a few minutes to find the rhythm in the poem. Can you see it? What type of
meter does Emily use? If you chose trochee, then you are absolutely right! Here is the first
stanza with the stressed syllables emphasized. Notice that the word 'I' is lower case to
emphasize that it is unstressed. Also, Emily does not complete the trochee at the end of all
lines.
If we read the poem emphasizing the trochaic pattern, we feel its rhythm.
Types of rhythm
English poetry makes use of five important rhythms. These rhythms are of
different patterns of stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables. Each unit of
these types is called foot. Here are the five types of rhythm:
1. Iamb (x /)
This is the most commonly used. It consists of two syllables. The first syllable
is not stressed while the second syllable is stressed. Such as “compare” in
2. Trochee (/ x)
A trochee is type of poetic foot which is usually used in English poetry. It has
two syllables. The first syllable is strongly stressed while the second syllable is
unstressed, as given below.
3. Spondee (/ /)
Spondee is a poetic foot which has two syllables that are consecutively
stressed. For example:
4. Dactyl (/ x x)
Dactyl is made up of three syllables. The first syllable is stressed and the
remaining two syllables are not stressed such as the word “marvelous”. For
example:
5. Anapest (x x /)
Anapests are totally opposites of the dactyls. They have three syllables;
where the first two syllables are not stressed while the last syllable is
stressed. For example:
English literature is full of rhythmical poems and pieces of prose. There are
many poets and authors who have used rhythm in their works. Just have a
look at some examples:
Example #1
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
(Romeo Juliet by Shakespeare)
Example #2
Milton has used spondee in his entire epic poem. The spondaic meter is
explicitly visible in the words like “wide was”. However, the remaining line is
iambic pentameter.
Example #3
These two lines are taken from Macbeth. The chorus of the witches’ spell
shows a perfect example of trochees. Stressed pattern is shown in capitals.
Example #4
Why so pale and wan, fond Lover?
Prithee why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee why so pale?
(Song by Sir John Suckling)
Sir John has written this poem in trochaic meter. Here the stressed or
accented syllables of trochaic pattern are shown in bold-face types. This
poem gives strong rhythmical effect.
Example #5
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(Tiger by William Blake)
The trochees are perfectly used in this poem by William Blake; here first
syllables in the words “tygertyger burning, forests” are stressed; however the
second syllables are unstressed.
Example #6
Function of Rhythm
Rhythm in writing acts as beat does in music. The use of rhythm in poetry
arises from the need that some words are to be produced more strongly than
others. They might be stressed for longer period of time. Hence, the repeated
use of rhythmical patterns of such accent produces rhythmical effect which
sounds pleasant to the mind as well as to the soul. In speech, rhythm is used
unconsciously to create identifiable patterns. Moreover, rhythm captivates the
audience and readers alike by giving musical effect to a speech or a literary
piece.
Sonnet
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This article is about the form of poetry. For other uses, see Sonnet (disambiguation).
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A sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy; Giacomo Da Lentini is credited with its invention.
The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a little poem,
from son song, from Latin sonus a sound). By the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen
lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the
sonnet have evolved over its history. Writers of sonnets are sometimes called "sonneteers",
although the term can be used derisively.
Contents
[hide]
In English, both English type (Shakespearean) sonnets and Italian type (Petrarchan) sonnets are
traditionally written in iambic pentameter lines.
The first known sonnets in English, written by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
used this Italian scheme, as did sonnets by later English poets including John Milton, Thomas
Gray, William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Early twentieth-century American
poet Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote most of her sonnets using the Italian form.
This example, On His Blindness by Milton, gives a sense of the Italian rhyming scheme:
When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)
Dante's variation[edit]
Most Sonnets in Dante's La Vita Nuova are Petrarchan. Chapter VII[4] gives sonnet "O voi che per la
via", with two sestets (AABAAB AABAAB) and two quatrains (CDDC CDDC), and Ch. VIII, "Morte
villana", with two sestets (AABBBA AABBBA) and two quatrains (CDDC CDDC).
Occitan sonnet[edit]
The sole confirmed surviving sonnet in the Occitan language is confidently dated to 1284, and is
conserved only in troubadour manuscript P, an Italian chansonnier of 1310, now XLI.42 in
the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence.[5] It was written by Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia and is
addressed to Peter III of Aragon. It employs the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d-c-d. This
poem is historically interesting for its information on north Italian perspectives concerning the War of
the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between theAngevins and Aragonese for Sicily.[5] Peter III and the
Aragonese cause was popular in northern Italy at the time and Paolo's sonnet is a celebration of his
victory over the Angevins and Capetians in the Aragonese Crusade:
Valenz Senher, rei dels Aragones
a qi prez es honors tut iorn enansa, Valiant Lord, king of the Aragonese
remembre vus, Senher, del Rei to whom honour grows every day closer,
franzes
remember, Lord, the French king[6]
qe vus venc a vezer e laiset Fransa
that has come to find you and has left France
Ab dos sos fillz es ab aqel d'Artes;
With his two sons[7] and that one of Artois;[8]
hanc no fes colp d'espaza ni de lansa
but they have not dealt a blow with sword or lance
e mainz baros menet de lur paes:
and many barons have left their country:
jorn de lur vida said n'auran
but a day will come when they will have some to
menbransa.
remember.
Nostre Senhier faccia a vus
Our Lord make yourself a company
compagna
in order that you might fear nothing;
per qe en ren no vus qal[la] duptar;
that one who would appear to lose might win.
tals quida hom qe perda qe
gazaingna. Lord of the land and the sea,
Seigner es de la terra e de la mar, as whom the king of England[9] and that of Spain[10]
per qe lo Rei Engles e sel d'Espangna are not worth as much, if you wish to help them.
ne varran mais, si.ls vorres aiudar.
An Occitan sonnet, dated to 1321 and assigned to one "William of Almarichi", is found in Jean de
Nostredame and cited in Giovanni Crescembeni, Storia della volgar Poesia. It congratulates Robert
of Naples on his recent victory. Its authenticity is dubious. There are also two poorly regarded
sonnets by the Italian Dante de Maiano.
William Shakespeare, in the famous "Chandos" portrait. Artist and authenticity unconfirmed.National Portrait
Gallery (UK).
Spenserian sonnet[edit]
A variant on the English form is the Spenserian sonnet, named after Edmund Spenser (c.1552–
1599), in which the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. The linked rhymes of his quatrains
suggest the linked rhymes of such Italian forms as terza rima. This example is taken from Amoretti:
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands
Urdu Sonnet[edit]
In the Indian subcontinent, sonnets have been written in the Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, English,
Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Sindhi and Urdu languages.
[12]
Urdu poets, also influenced by English and other European poets, took to writing sonnets in the
Urdu language rather late.[13] Azmatullah Khan (1887–1923) is believed to have introduced this
format to Urdu literature in the very early part of the 20th century. The other renowned Urdu poets
who wrote sonnets were Akhtar Junagarhi, Akhtar Sheerani, Noon Meem Rashid, Mehr Lal Soni Zia
Fatehabadi, Salaam Machhalishahari and Wazir Agha.[14] This example, a sonnet by Zia
Fatehabadi taken from his collection Meri Tasveer,[15] is in the usual English (Shakespearean) sonnet
rhyme-scheme.
ڈبکںی
پس پردہ کِسی نے میرے ارمانوں کی محفِل کو،
ِ
کچھ ایسے طور سے دیکھا،کچھ اِس انداز سے دیکھا،
ِ ُغ،
بار آہ سے دے کر جال آئینۂ دل کو
غور سے دیکھا،ہر اِک صورت کو میں نے خوب دیکھا
مجھے جس کی تم ّنا تھی، نظر آئی نہ وہ صورت
بستی میں، ویرانے میں،بہت ڈھُونڈا کیا گلشن میں
شمع مہر و ماہ سے دِن رات دُنیا تھی
ِ م ّنور
مگر چاروں طرف تھا ُگھپ اندھیرا میری ہستی میں
مجروح اُلفت کر دیا کِس نے
ِ دل مجبور کوِ
مرے احساس کی گہرایوں میں ہے چُبھن غم کی
میری روح کو اپنا لیا کس نے،مٹا کر جسم
ت پیہم کی ِ جوانی بن گئی آما جگہ صدما
ت نظر کا سلسلہ توڈ اور آ بھی جاِ حجابا
مجھے اِک بار اپنا جلوۂ رنگیں دکھا بھی جا
“
”
Sonnet 'Dubkani' ڈبکںیby Zia Fatehabadi taken from his book titled Meri Tasveer
"Dubkani"
Pas e pardaa kisii ne mere armaanon kii mehfil ko (a)
Kuchh is andaaz se dekhaa, kuchh aise taur se dekhaa (b)
Ghubaar e aah se de kar jilaa aainaa e dil ko (a)
Har ik soorat ko maine khoob dekhaa, ghaur se dekhaa (b)
Nazar aaii na woh soorat, mujhe jiskii tamanaa thii (c)
Bahut dhoondaa kiyaa gulshan mein, veeraane mein, bastii mein (d)
Munnawar shamma e mehar o maah se din raat duniyaa thii (c)
Magar chaaron taraf thaa ghup andheraa merii hastii mein (d)
Dil e majboor ko majrooh e ulfat kar diyaa kisne (e)
Mere ahsaas kii ghahraiion mein hai chubhan gham kii (f)
Mitaa kar jism, merii rooh ko apnaa liyaa kisne (e)
Jawanii ban gaii aamaajagaah sadmaat e paiham kii (f)
Hijaabaat e nazar kaa sisilaa tod aur aa bhii jaa (g)
Mujhe ik baar apnaa jalwaa e rangiin dikhaa bhii jaa. (g)
Modern sonnet[edit]
With the advent of free verse, the
sonnet was seen as somewhat old-
fashioned and fell out of use for a time
among some schools of poets.[citation
needed]
However, a number of modern
poets, including Don
Paterson, Federico García Lorca, E.E.
Cummings, Joan Brossa, Paul
Muldoon and Seamus
Heaney continued to use the
form. Wendy Cope's poem "Stress" is
a sonnet. Elizabeth Bishop's inverted
"Sonnet" was one of her last poems.
Ted Berrigan's book, The Sonnets, is
an arresting and curious take on the
form. Paul Muldoon often experiments
with 14 lines and sonnet rhymes,
though without regular sonnet meter.
The advent of the New
Formalism movement in the United
States has also contributed to
contemporary interest in the sonnet.
The sonnet sees its revival with
the word sonnet. Concise and visual in
effect, word sonnets are fourteen line
poems, with one word per line.
Frequently allusive and imagistic, they
can also be irreverent and playful. The
Canadian poet Seymour
Mayne published a few collections of
word sonnets, and is one of the chief
innovators of the form.
[16]
Contemporary word sonnets
combine a variation of styles often
considered to be mutually exclusive to
separate genres, as demonstrated in
works such as An Ode to Mary.
[17]
Also, the contemporary Greek
poet Yannis Livadas invented the
"fusion sonnet", consisting of 21 lines,
essentially a variable half of a "jazz"
sonnet, accompanied by a half sonnet
as a coda. Both parts of the poem
appear as a whole in a dismantled
form of a series of 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, and 5-
lined stanzas
A sonnet is fundamentally a dialectical construct which allows the poet to examine the
nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas,emotions, states of mind,
beliefs, actions, events, images, etc., byjuxtaposing the two against each other, and
possibly resolving or justrevealing the tensions created and operative between the two.
O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, youshow two related
but differing things to the reader in order to communicatesomething about them. Each
of the three major types of sonnets accomplishesthis in a somewhat different way.
There are, of course, other types of sonnets,as well, but I'll stick for now to just the
basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at some non-standard
sonnets.
The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two differentgroups of rhyming
sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octaveand rhymes:
abbaabba
The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can haveeither two or three rhyming
sounds, arranged in a variety ofways:
cdcdcd
cddcdc
cdecde
cdeced
cdcedc
The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern)is flexible. In strict
practice, the one thing that is to be avoidedin the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or
ee), as this wasnever permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used
a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets aresometimes ended with couplets
(Sidney's "Sonnet LXXI givenbelow is an example of such a terminal couplet in an
Italiansonnet).
The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections bythe two differing rhyme
groups. In accordance with the principle(which supposedly applies to all rhymed
poetry but oftendoesn't), a change from one rhyme group to another signifiesa
change in subject matter. This change occurs at thebeginning of L9 in the Italian
sonnet and is called the volta,or "turn"; the turn is an essential element of the sonnet
form, perhaps the essential element. It is at the volta thatthe second idea is introduced,
as in this sonnet by Wordsworth:
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Here, the octave develops the idea of the decline and corruption of the English race,
while the sestet opposes to that loss the qualities Milton possessed which the race now
desperately needs.
A very skillful poet can manipulate the placement of the volta for dramatic effect,
although this is difficult to do well. An extremeexample is this sonnet by Sir Philip
Sidney, which delays the voltaall the way to L 14:
"Sonnet LXXI"
Who will in fairest book of Nature know
How Virtue may best lodged in Beauty be,
Let him but learn of Love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines, which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices' overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And not content to be Perfection's heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good.
"But, ah," Desire still cries, "give me some food."
Here, in giving 13 lines to arguing why Reason makes clearto him that following
Virtue is the course he should take, he seems to be heavily biassing the argument in
Virtue'sfavor. But the volta powerfully undercuts the arguments of Reason in favor of
Virtue by revealing that Desire isn't amenableto Reason.
There are a number of variations which evolved over time to make iteasier to write
Italian sonnets in English. Most common is a changein the octave rhyming pattern
from a b b a a b b a to a b b a a c c a,eliminating the need for two groups of 4 rhymes,
something not alwayseasy to come up with in English which is a rhyme-poor
language.Wordsworth uses that pattern in the following sonnet, along with aterminal
couplet:
Another variation on the Italian form is this one, byTennyson's older brother Charles
Tennyson-Turner,who wrote 342 sonnets, many in variant forms.Here, Turner uses an
a b b a c d c d e f f e f epattern, with the volta delayed until the middleof L9:
ababbcbccdcdee
Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-linegroups, each of which develops a
specific idea;however, the overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form thefirst 12 lines into
a single unit with a separated finalcouplet. The three quatrains then develop
threedistinct but closely related ideas, with a differentidea (or commentary) in the
couplet. Interestingly,Spenser often begins L9 ofhis sonnets with "But" or "Yet,"
indicating a voltaexactly where it would occur in the Italian sonnet;however, if one
looks closely, one often finds that the "turn" here really isn't one at all, that the
actualturn occurs where the rhyme pattern changes, withthe couplet, thus giving a 12
and 2 line pattern very different from the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern
(actualvolta marked by italics):
"Sonnet LIV"
Of this World's theatre in which we stay,
My love like the Spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversely my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in mirth like to a Comedy;
Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.
abab
c d c d
efef
g g
As in the Spenserian, each quatrain develops aspecific idea, but one closely related to
the ideasin the other quatrains.
Not only is the English sonnet the easiest in termsof its rhyme scheme, calling for
only pairs ofrhyming words rather than groups of 4, but it isthe most flexible in terms
of the placement of thevolta. Shakespeare often places the "turn,"as in the Italian, at
L9:
"Sonnet XXIX"
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Equally, Shakespeare can delay the volta tothe final couplet, as in this sonnet where
eachquatrain develops a metaphor describing theaging of the speaker, while the
couplet thenstates the consequence--"You better love menow because soon I won't be
here":
"Sonnet LXXIII"
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed by that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Frederick Goddard Tuckerman wrote sonnets with free abandonand with virtually no
regard for any kind of pattern at all, his rhymesafter the first few lines falling
seemingly at random, as in this sonnetfrom his "Sonnets, First Series," which rhymes
a b b a b c a b a d e c e d,with a volta at L10:
"Sonnet XXVIII"
Not the round natural world, not the deep mind,
The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss
Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss
And but in Him may we our import find.
The agony to know, the grief, the bliss
Of toil, is vain and vain: clots of the sod
Gathered in heat and haste and flung behind
To blind ourselves and others, what but this
Still grasping dust and sowing toward the wind?
No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead,
But leave straining thought and stammering word,
Across the barren azure pass to God:
Shooting the void in silence like a bird,
A bird that shuts his wings for better speed.
One wonders if the "sod"/"God" rhyme, being six lines apart,actually works, if the
reader's ear can pick it up across thatdistance. Still, the poem has the dialectical
structure thata sonnet is supposed to have, so there is justification for infact
considering it one.
A sonnet takes different forms with the classical sonnet poets but there are two things
that are common and they are the things that make a sonnet instantly recognisable.
A sonnet has fourteen lines
A sonnet is written in iambic pentameter
The fourteen lines required for a poem to be a sonnet are made up of rhyme patterns.
There are different ways of organising the rhyme patterns. For example, the sonnet can
be divided into two sections, each section having its own rhyme pattern. They are an
eight line section, called an octet, and a six line section, called a sestet. That is the form
used by the Italian poet, Petrarch, the most famous sonnet writer apart from
Shakespeare. It’s known as thePetrarchan Sonnet or the Italian Sonnet.
The sonnet can also be divided into three four line sections, called quatrains, and a two
line section called a couplet. This is the form Shakespeare uses and the form has become
known as the Shakespearean Sonnet or the Elizabethan Sonnet.
The sonnet expresses a single idea but the division into octaves, sestets, quatrains and
couplets allows the poet to switch the focus, dealing with a different aspect of the idea
in each section..
The rhyme patters look like this. The octet is aabbaabba. All the ‘a’s rhyme with each
other and all the ‘b’s rhyme with each other. The sestet is cdecde or cdcdcd or cddece.
All the words ending the lines with the same letter rhyme with each other.
In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the quatrain patterns look like this. Abab cdcd efef and the
couplet is gg. All the sonnets follow that pattern.
Iambic pentameter refers to the structure of the line. Iambic refers to the name of the foot,
which is composed of a weaker syllable followed by an accented syllable. For example
the word away has two syllables with a weak stress on the first, a, and a strong stress
on the second, way. The word constitutes a foot or an iambus. Pentameter simply refers
to the number of feet, in the case of the sonnet, five. So if you look at this line from a
Shakespeare sonnet you will see how it works:
I never writ nor no man ever loved
There you have an iambic pentameter. All sonnets use that model and almost all the
lines in Shakespeare’s plays are written in iambic pentameter as well.
So how do poets use this form? This is an example of a Petrarchan Sonnet written by
William Wordsworth. Like other sonnet writers he uses iambic pentameter but, like
Shakespeare, he sometimes disguises it to get the rhythm he wants to make it sound
like everyday speech.
The Octave
The Sestet
Wordsworth invokes the spirit of Milton who he thinks lived in a better time and the
octet is concerned with all the faults he sees in the England of his own time. He
switches the focus onto Milton himself in the sestet to show what greatness was in a
past age.
First Quotrain
Second Quotrain
Third Quotrain
The first quatrain announces that love is perfect and can’t be affected by anything. The
second quatrain elaborates on that, showing that love is something absolutely stable in
a tumultuous world. The third quatrain switches the focus on to time and suggests that
love lasts forever. The couplet is a final summing up in which the poet stakes his career
on the truth of what he’s revealed about love.
THE LOTTERY
Shirley Jackson
←
Plot Overview
→
The villagers of a small town gather together in the square on June 27, a
beautiful day, for the town lottery. In other towns, the lottery takes longer, but
there are only 300 people in this village, so the lottery takes only two hours.
Village children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around
collecting stones. They put the stones in their pockets and make a pile in the
square. Men gather next, followed by the women. Parents call their children over,
and families stand together.
Mr. Summers runs the lottery because he has a lot of time to do things for the
village. He arrives in the square with the black box, followed by Mr. Graves, the
postmaster. This black box isn’t the original box used for the lottery because the
original was lost many years ago, even before the town elder, Old Man Warner,
was born. Mr. Summers always suggests that they make a new box because the
current one is shabby, but no one wants to fool around with tradition. Mr.
Summers did, however, convince the villagers to replace the traditional wood
chips with slips of paper.
Mr. Summers mixes up the slips of paper in the box. He and Mr. Graves made
the papers the night before and then locked up the box at Mr. Summers’s coal
company. Before the lottery can begin, they make a list of all the families and
households in the village. Mr. Summers is sworn in. Some people remember that
in the past there used to be a song and salute, but these have been lost.
Tessie Hutchinson joins the crowd, flustered because she had forgotten that
today was the day of the lottery. She joins her husband and children at the front
of the crowd, and people joke about her late arrival. Mr. Summers asks whether
anyone is absent, and the crowd responds that Dunbar isn’t there. Mr. Summers
asks who will draw for Dunbar, and Mrs. Dunbar says she will because she
doesn’t have a son who’s old enough to do it for her. Mr. Summers asks whether
the Watson boy will draw, and he answers that he will. Mr. Summers then asks to
make sure that Old Man Warner is there too.
Mr. Summers reminds everyone about the lottery’s rules: he’ll read names, and
the family heads come up and draw a slip of paper. No one should look at the
paper until everyone has drawn. He calls all the names, greeting each person as
they come up to draw a paper. Mr. Adams tells Old Man Warner that people in
the north village might stop the lottery, and Old Man Warner ridicules young
people. He says that giving up the lottery could lead to a return to living in caves.
Mrs. Adams says the lottery has already been given up in other villages, and Old
Man Warner says that’s “nothing but trouble.”
Mr. Summers finishes calling names, and everyone opens his or her papers.
Word quickly gets around that Bill Hutchinson has “got it.” Tessie argues that it
wasn’t fair because Bill didn’t have enough time to select a paper. Mr. Summers
asks whether there are any other households in the Hutchinson family, and Bill
says no, because his married daughter draws with her husband’s family. Mr.
Summers asks how many kids Bill has, and he answers that he has three. Tessie
protests again that the lottery wasn’t fair.
Mr. Graves dumps the papers out of the box onto the ground and then puts five
papers in for the Hutchinsons. As Mr. Summers calls their names, each member
of the family comes up and draws a paper. When they open their slips, they find
that Tessie has drawn the paper with the black dot on it. Mr. Summers instructs
everyone to hurry up.
The villagers grab stones and run toward Tessie, who stands in a clearing in the
middle of the crowd. Tessie says it’s not fair and is hit in the head with a stone.
Everyone begins throwing stones at her.
Character List
→
Tessie Hutchinson - The unlucky loser of the lottery. Tessie draws the paper
with the black mark on it and is stoned to death. She is excited about the lottery
and fully willing to participate every year, but when her family’s name is drawn,
she protests that the lottery isn’t fair. Tessie arrives at the village square late
because she forgot what day it was.
Read an in-depth analysis of Tessie Hutchinson.
Old Man Warner - The oldest man in the village. Old Man Warner has
participated in seventy-seven lotteries. He condemns the young people in other
villages who have stopped holding lotteries, believing that the lottery keeps
people from returning to a barbaric state.
Read an in-depth analysis of Old Man Warner.
Mr. Summers - The man who conducts the lottery. Mr. Summers prepares the
slips of paper that go into the black box and calls the names of the people who
draw the papers. The childless owner of a coal company, he is one of the village
leaders.
Read an in-depth analysis of Mr. Summers.
Bill Hutchinson - Tessie’s husband. Bill first draws the marked paper, but he
picks a blank paper during the second drawing. He is fully willing to show
everyone that his wife, Tessie, has drawn the marked paper.
Mr. Harry Graves - The postmaster. Mr. Graves helps Mr. Summers prepare
the papers for the lottery and assists him during the ritual.
→
Tessie Hutchinson
When Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the lottery, admitting that she forgot what
day it was, she immediately stands out from the other villagers as someone
different and perhaps even threatening. Whereas the other women arrive at the
square calmly, chatting with one another and then standing placidly by their
husbands, Tessie arrives flustered and out of breath. The crowd must part for her
to reach her family, and she and her husband endure good-natured teasing as
she makes her way to them. On a day when the villagers’ single focus is the
lottery, this breach of propriety seems inappropriate, even unforgivable; everyone
comes to the lottery, and everyone comes on time. The only person absent is a
man whose leg is broken. Although Tessie quickly settles into the crowd and
joins the lottery like everyone else, Jackson has set her apart as a kind of free
spirit who was able to forget about the lottery entirely as she performed her
chores.
Perhaps because she is a free spirit, Tessie is the only villager to protest against
the lottery. When the Hutchinson family draws the marked paper, she exclaims,
“It wasn’t fair!” This refrain continues as she is selected and subsequently stoned
to death, but instead of listening to her, the villagers ignore her. Even Bill tells her
to be quiet. We don’t know whether Tessie would have protested the fairness of
the lottery if her family had not been selected, but this is a moot point. Whatever
her motivation is for speaking out, she is effectively silenced.
Old Man Warner
Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, has participated in seventy-seven
lotteries and is a staunch advocate for keeping things exactly the way they are.
He dismisses the towns and young people who have stopped having lotteries as
“crazy fools,” and he is threatened by the idea of change. He believes, illogically,
that the people who want to stop holding lotteries will soon want to live in caves,
as though only the lottery keeps society stable. He also holds fast to what seems
to be an old wives’ tale—“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”—and fears that if
the lottery stops, the villagers will be forced to eat “chickweed and acorns.”
Again, this idea suggests that stopping the lottery will lead to a return to a much
earlier era, when people hunted and gathered for their food. These illogical,
irrational fears reveal that Old Man Warner harbors a strong belief in superstition.
He easily accepts the way things are because this is how they’ve always been,
and he believes any change to the status quo will lead to disaster. This way of
thinking shows how dangerous it is to follow tradition blindly, never questioning
beliefs that are passed down from one generation to the next.
Mr. Summers
→
Themes
The village lottery culminates in a violent murder each year, a bizarre ritual that
suggests how dangerous tradition can be when people follow it blindly. Before we
know what kind of lottery they’re conducting, the villagers and their preparations
seem harmless, even quaint: they’ve appointed a rather pathetic man to lead the
lottery, and children run about gathering stones in the town square. Everyone is
seems preoccupied with a funny-looking black box, and the lottery consists of
little more than handmade slips of paper. Tradition is endemic to small towns, a
way to link families and generations. Jackson, however, pokes holes in the
reverence that people have for tradition. She writes that the villagers don’t really
know much about the lottery’s origin but try to preserve the tradition
nevertheless.
The villagers’ blind acceptance of the lottery has allowed ritual murder to become
part of their town fabric. As they have demonstrated, they feel powerless to
change—or even try to change—anything, although there is no one forcing them
to keep things the same. Old Man Warner is so faithful to the tradition that he
fears the villagers will return to primitive times if they stop holding the lottery.
These ordinary people, who have just come from work or from their homes and
will soon return home for lunch, easily kill someone when they are told to. And
they don’t have a reason for doing it other than the fact that they’ve always held a
lottery to kill someone. If the villagers stopped to question it, they would be forced
to ask themselves why they are committing a murder—but no one stops to
question. For them, the fact that this is tradition is reason enough and gives them
all the justification they need.
Motifs
Family
Family bonds are a significant part of the lottery, but the emphasis on family only
heightens the killing’s cruelty because family members so easily turn against one
another. Family ties form the lottery’s basic structure and execution. In the town
square, families stand together in groups, and every family member must be
present. Elaborate lists of heads of families, heads of households within those
families, and household members are created, and these lists determine which
member draws from the box. Family relationships are essential to how the
actions of the lottery are carried out, but these relationships mean nothing the
moment it’s time to stone the unlucky victim. As soon as it’s clear that Tessie has
drawn the marked paper, for example, her husband and children turn on her just
as the other villagers do. Although family relationships determine almost
everything about the lottery, they do not guarantee loyalty or love once the lottery
is over.
Rules
The lottery is rife with rules that are arbitrarily followed or disregarded. The
intricate rules the villagers follow suggest that the lottery is an efficient, logical
ritual and that there is an important purpose behind it, whereas the rules that
have lapsed, however, reveal the essential randomness of the lottery’s dark
conclusion. Mr. Summers follows an elaborate system of rules for creating the
slips of paper and making up the lists of families. When the lottery begins, he
lays out a series of specific rules for the villagers, including who should draw
slips of paper from the black box and when to open those papers. When
someone is unable to draw, the lottery rules determine who should be next in
line. At the same time, there are ghosts of rules that have been long forgotten or
willfully abandoned altogether, such as those for salutes and songs that
accompany Mr. Summer’s induction as the chairman of the lottery. The fact that
some rules have remained while others have disappeared underscores the
disturbing randomness of the murder at the end of the lottery.
Symbols
The shabby black box represents both the tradition of the lottery and the illogic of
the villagers’ loyalty to it. The black box is nearly falling apart, hardly even black
anymore after years of use and storage, but the villagers are unwilling to replace
it. They base their attachment on nothing more than a story that claims that this
black box was made from pieces of another, older black box. The lottery is filled
with similar relics from the past that have supposedly been passed down from
earlier days, such as the creation of family lists and use of stones. These are part
of the tradition, from which no one wants to deviate—the lottery must take place
in just this way because this is how it’s always been done. However, other lottery
traditions have been changed or forgotten. The villagers use slips of paper
instead of wood chips, for example. There is no reason why the villagers should
be loyal to the black box yet disloyal to other relics and traditions, just as there is
no logical reason why the villagers should continue holding the lottery at all.
The Lottery
The lottery represents any action, behavior, or idea that is passed down from one
generation to the next that’s accepted and followed unquestioningly, no matter
how illogical, bizarre, or cruel. The lottery has been taking place in the village for
as long as anyone can remember. It is a tradition, an annual ritual that no one
has thought to question. It is so much a part of the town’s culture, in fact, that it is
even accompanied by an old adage: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” The
villagers are fully loyal to it, or, at least, they tell themselves that they are, despite
the fact that many parts of the lottery have changed or faded away over the
years. Nevertheless, the lottery continues, simply because there has always
been a lottery. The result of this tradition is that everyone becomes party to
murder on an annual basis. The lottery is an extreme example of what can
happen when traditions are not questioned or addressed critically by new
generations.
Specific Details
→
The specific details Jackson describes in the beginning of “The Lottery” set us up for the
shocking conclusion. In the first paragraph, Jackson provides specific details about the
day on which the lottery takes place. She tells us the date (June 27), time (about 10 A . M . ),
and temperature (warm). She describes the scene exactly: there are flowers and green
grass, and the town square, where everyone gathers, is between the bank and post office.
She provides specifics about the town, including how many people live there and how
long the lottery takes, as well as about neighboring towns, which have more people and
must start the lottery earlier. In the paragraphs that follow this introduction, Jackson gives
us characters’ full names—Bobby Martin, Harry Jones, and Dickie Delacroix, among
others—and even tells us how to pronounce “Delacroix.”
Far from being superfluous or irrelevant, these initial specific details ground the story in
reality. Because she sets the story firmly in a specific place and time, Jackson seems to
suggest that the story will be a chronicle of sorts, describing the tradition of the lottery.
The specifics continue throughout the story, from the numerous rules Mr. Summers
follows to the names of the people who are called up to the box. In a way, there is safety
in these details—the world Jackson creates seems much like the one we know. And then
the stoning begins, turning reality on its head. Because Jackson is so meticulous in
grounding us in realistic, specific details, they sharpen the violence and make the ending
so incredibly surprising.
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This quotation, from the fifth paragraph of the story, reveals how firmly entrenched the
villagers are in the lottery’s tradition and how threatening they find the idea of change.
The villagers have no good reason for wanting to keep the black box aside from a vague
story about the box’s origins, and the box itself is falling apart. Beyond shabby, it barely
resembles a box now, but the villagers, who seem to take such pride in the ritual of the
lottery, do not seem to care about the box’s appearance. They just want the box to stay
the same. Their strident belief that the box must not change suggests that they fear change
itself, as though one change might lead to other changes. Already, some towns have
stopped holding lotteries, but these villagers do not seem to be headed in that direction.
Instead, they hold firm to the parts of the tradition that remain, afraid to alter even this
seemingly insignificant part of it for fear of starting down a slippery slope.
2. Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business
of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally.
This quotation appears about halfway through the story, just before the drawing of names
begins. Mr. Summers has asked Mrs. Dunbar whether her son, Horace, will be drawing
for the family in Mr. Dunbar’s absence, even though everyone knows Horace is still too
young. There is no purpose to the question, other than that the question is part of the
tradition, and so Mr. Summers adheres to the rule despite the fact that it seems absurd.
Even though other parts of the ritual have changed or been discarded over the years, this
rule holds firm for absolutely no logical reason. Large things, such as songs and salutes,
have slipped away, and wood chips have been replaced with slips of paper. Yet this silly,
pointless questioning continues. The villagers seem strident in their adherence to the
tradition. Old Man Warner, in particular, is adamant that tradition must be upheld and the
lottery must continue. But the reality is that there is no consistency among what rules are
followed and which are discarded. This lack of logic makes the villagers’ blind
observance of the ritual even more problematic because the tradition they claim to be
upholding is actually flimsy and haphazard.
3. Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use
stones.
This quotation, which appears near the end of the story, distills the lottery down to its
essence: murder. The villagers may talk of tradition, ritual, and history, but the truth—as
this quotation makes clear—is that the traditional parts of it have long been discarded.
The original ritual and box may indeed have borne along a tradition, violent and bizarre
as it may be, but now, without the original trappings, songs, and procedures, all that
remains is the violence. The haphazard ritual, the bits and pieces that have been slapped
together into some semblance of the original, have led to this essential moment of killing.
The villagers are all too eager to embrace what remains, eagerly picking up the stones
and carrying on the “tradition” for another year.
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On June 26, 1948, subscribers to The New Yorker received a new issue of the magazine in the mail.
There was nothing to outwardly indicate that it would be any different, or any more special, than any
other issue. But inside was a story that editors at the magazine would, more than half a century later,
call “perhaps the most controversial short story The New Yorker has ever published”: Shirley
Jackson’s “The Lottery.”
Though now a classic, the story—about a small New England village whose residents follow an
annual rite in which they draw slips of paper until, finally, one of them is selected to be stoned to
death—caused an immediate outcry when it was published, and gave Jackson literary notoriety. “It
was not my first published story, nor my last,” the writer recounted in a 1960 lecture, “but I have
been assured over and over that if it had been the only story I ever wrote and published, there would
still be people who would not forget my name.” Here are a few things you might not have known
about the story.
1. WRITING IT WAS A SNAP.
Jackson, who lived in North Bennington, Vermont, wrote the story on a warm June day after running
errands. She remembered later that the idea “had come to me while I was pushing my daughter up the
hill in her stroller—it was, as I say, a warm morning, and the hill was steep, and beside my daughter,
the stroller held the day’s groceries—and perhaps the effort of that last 50 yards up the hill put an
edge to the story.”
The writing came easily; Jackson dashed out the story in under two hours, making only “two minor
corrections” when she read it later—“I felt strongly that I didn’t want to fuss with it”—and sent it to
her agent the next day. Though her agent didn’t care for "The Lottery," she sent it off to The New
Yorker anyway, telling Jackson in a note that it was her job to sell it, not like it.
2. WHEN THE STORY CAME IN, THE DECISION TO PUBLISH IT WAS
NEARLY UNANIMOUS.
According to Ruth Franklin, who is writing a new biography about Jackson, there was only
oneexception—editor William Maxwell, who said the story was “contrived” and “heavy-handed.”
The rest, though, were in agreement. Brendan Gill, a young staffer at the time, would later say that
"The Lottery" was “one of the best stories—two or three or four best—that the magazine ever
printed.”
3. BUT THEY WERE PUZZLED BY THE STORY.
Even Harold Ross, editor of the magazine at the time, copped to not understanding it. Jackson later
recalled that the magazine’s fiction editor asked if she had an interpretation of the story, telling her
that Ross “was not altogether sure that he understood the story, and asked if I cared to enlarge about
its meaning. I said no.” When the editor asked if there was something the magazine should tell
people who might write in or call, Jackson again responded in the negative, saying, “It was just a
story that I wrote.”
4. THE EDITORS ASKED TO MAKE A MINOR TWEAK.
The editors did ask for permission to make one small change: They wanted to alter the date in the
story’s opening so it coincided with the date on the new issue—June 27. Jackson said that was fine.
Jackson kept all of the letters, kind and not-so-kind, and they’re currently among her papers at the
Library of Congress.
Franklin noted that among those fooled were Stirling Silliphant, a producer at Twentieth Century Fox
(“All of us here have been grimly moved by Shirley Jackson’s story.… Was it purely an imaginative
flight, or do such tribunal rituals still exist and, if so, where?”), and Harvard sociology professor
Nahum Medalia (“It is a wonderful story, and it kept me very cold on the hot morning when I read
it.”).
It might seem strange that so many people thought the story was factual, but, as Franklin notes, “at
the time The New Yorker did not designate its stories as fact or fiction, and the ‘casuals,’ or
humorous essays, were generally understood as falling somewhere in between.”
9. THE NEW YORKER HAD A BOILERPLATE RESPONSE TO LETTERS
ABOUT "THE LOTTERY."
It went something like this: “Miss Jackson’s story can be interpreted in half a dozen different ways.
It’s just a fable.… She has chosen a nameless little village to show, in microcosm, how the forces of
belligerence, persecution, and vindictiveness are, in mankind, endless and traditional and that their
targets are chosen without reason.”
10. JACKSON DID WEIGH IN ON THE LOTTERY’S MEANING.
“Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult,” she wrote in the San Francisco
Chronicle in July 1948. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present
and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless
violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.”
11. THE STORY HAS BEEN ADAPTED MANY TIMES.
Though it's most famous for its place on high school reading lists, “The Lottery” has also been
adapted into a number of formats, including a radio broadcast in 1951, a ballet in 1953, a short film
in 1969, and a 1996 TV movie starring Keri Russel that followed the son of the story’s murdered
character. "The Lottery" has also been featured on The Simpsons.
June 26, 2014 - 2:00pm
The Lottery
by Shirley Jackson
Accordingly, we are prohibited from presenting the full text here in our short
story collection, but we can present summary of the story, along with by some
study questions, commentary and explanations.
It is important to have some historical context to understand this story and the negative
reaction that it generated when it was published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New
Yorker. The setting for the story, a gathering in a small rural village, wasn't a fictional
construct in America in the summer of 1948. The setting was emblematic of "small town
America" and many people identified directly with the setting and the gathering
depicted. It was customary at that time for rural community leaders to organize
summertime gatherings to draw people together in town centers to socialize, and to
frequent and support some of the town's business establishments. It was thought to be
good for the businesses and good for the community. These gatherings were usually
organized by the city council and featured lotteries with modest cash-prizes to help lure
people into their vehicles for the long drive to town. So the scene was instantly
recognizable to readers -- especially rural readers -- when the story was published, and
they did not like the way that this particular story developed and concluded. Many
interpreted the story to be an attack on the values of rural communities. As a result the
story engendered a great deal of anger and criticism.
The night before Mr. Summers, a town leader who officiates the lottery, had
made paper slips listing all the families with the help of Mr. Graves (subtle
name choice?). The slips were stored overnight in a safe at the coal company.
The villagers start to gather at 10 a.m. so that they may finish in time for
lunch. Children busy themselves collecting stones -- one of those odd details
that will later emerge loaded with meaning -- until the proceedings get
underway and they are called together by their parents.
Mr. Summers works down the list of families, summoning the head man of
each household. A male sixteen years or older comes forward and draws a
slip of paper. When every family has a slip of paper, Mr. Summers has
everyone look at the slip and we discover that Bill Hutchinson has drawn the
one slip with a black spot. It's his family that has been chosen. Mrs.
Hutchinson begins to protest. With tension mounting it becomes clear that
"winning" this lottery isn't going to be what we expected, and that the "winner"
isn't going to walk away with a pile of cash.
Once a family is chosen, the second round begins. In this round, each family
member, no matter how old or young, must draw a slip of paper. It is Tess
Hutchinson who draws the slip with the black circle. While Mrs. Hutchinson
protests the unfairness of the situation, each of the villagers picks up a stone
-- "And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles" -- and closes in
on her. The story ends with Mrs. Hutchinson being stoned to death while
protesting, "It isn't fair, it isn't right." The story concludes with six of the most
famous words in short story history, "And then they were upon her."
When the story was released it engendered a very strong negative reaction and backlash
that manifested itself in subscribtion cancellations for The New Yorkerand large amounts of
what could be described as "hate mail" for both the magazine and the author. Shirley
Jackson and the editors at The New Yorker were both surprised by the reaction. Even
Jackson's mother was critical of the work. Here is an excerpt from Jackson herself:
'It had simply never occurred to me that these millions and millions of people
might be so far from being uplifted that they would sit down and write me letters I
was downright scared to open; of the three-hundred-odd letters that I received
that summer I can count only thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were
mostly from friends. Even my mother scolded me: "Dad and I did not care at all
for your story in The New Yorker," she wrote sternly; "it does seem, dear, that
this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days.
Why don't you write something to cheer people up?"'
One literary critic described the story as "a chilling tale of conformity gone
mad." Yes, that's a nice sound-bite to release in a classroom discussion, a
book club gathering or a short story seminar but I honestly doubt that the
letters received by Jackson in 1948 cursed her for writing a tale of 'conformity
gone mad.' I do suspect that some people picked up and reacted strongly to
the idea that Jackson might be suggesting that underneath the idyllic image of
rural communities peopled by wholesome citizens, that there might be a
sinister force waiting to be unleashed. The people in those communities
certainly didn't see themselves that way. I suspect that some folks made
simpler inferences about the story that they still found offensive; that the
stones represented harmful gossip and insults, that these gatherings were a
place where unfounded rumors could be born by chance and inflict real
damage on those targeted; as gathering by gathering, a new "target" might
become subject to slander earned or unearned.
Jackson kept her intended meaning to herself, believing that it would emerge
more clearly with the passage of time. But considering that she was genuinely
surprised by the reaction, it seems logical to conclude that she intended to
make a commentary on general human nature rather than a specific criticism
of rural American communities in the mid-20th century.
For those of you that have landed on this page looking for the secret to
winning the lottery, I have a few thoughts . . .
Second, there is no magic formula and the odds of winning are extremely low.
So balance your participation modestly, never spend more than you can
afford. Enjoy dreaming about what you will do if you win.
Lastly, keep in mind, that no matter how often you play and lose, your worst
loss is better than Tess Hutchinson's win!
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