A Feministic View on Jackson’s Short Stories ‘the Lottery’...

Shirley Jackson is most famous for her short story ‘The Lottery’ and her novel ‘The Haunted House’. She has been applauded for her fresh approach towards American Gothic writing. There are many works dedicated to the gothic elements her stories contain. However, most critics overlooked the feminist elements that most of her stories have. The two short stories discussed in this essay both have female characters who are outsiders in their society. Careful examination of the protagonists’ course of action, setting, and symbolic references Shirley Jackson put in both of the stories shows that the female protagonist in both ‘The Lottery’ and ‘The Tooth should be considered as a woman with a feminist attitude towards a male-dominated society.†¦show more content†¦However, towards the end of the story Tessie transforms into a different woman once her family is chosen. The next passage indicates Tessie’s transformation when all of the sudden, Tessie Hutchinson shouts to Mr. Summers, â€Å"You didnt give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasnt fair!†(298). Her husband did not receive an honest treatment according to Tessie, which will eventually lead to her downfall. Now that she is the victim, there is a significant change in attitude towards the town and its tradition. She is no longer a good-natured woman who finds the lottery on great joke, instead, she stands up to this old tradition and is more nervous and aggressive than ever before in the story. This is the complete opposite of what we first saw of Tessie, a simple woman concerned more with her dishes than the lottery. The character of Tessie, in the end of the story, is fully aware of the consequences of this same lottery and she protests against the tradition which is so deeply rooted in her society. Because of the first impression of Tessie the reader would have expected her to just shrug her shoulders, inst ead Tessie does completely the opposite and stands up for her own rights. In ‘The Tooth’ Clara leaves her secure domestic environment to travel to