Point Of View Of The Lottery Essay

The shifting of point of view in the story of “The Lottery” helps create the surprise ending for the reader by showing members of the village happily and excitedly getting ready for what seems to be a happy tradition when in actuality it’s a sacrifice. For example, the story starts out by describing it to be a beautiful summers day and the children of the village were out of school and happily playing with one another. The boys of the village were described to be playing a game of collecting and protecting stones they found around the village. This would normally be seen as something innocent and playful so it comes as a shock when we get to the end of the story that they boys were not collecting plain old stones they were actually collecting …show more content…
This is shown throughout the story by describing certain traditions or relics used in past lotteries such as the black box or ritual salutes and chants. However, these traditions have been lost and forgotten through time and so villagers just skip them and just get to the important stuff such as the drawing of the names and stoning of the person who’s chosen. It is also described that other villages have stopped conducting the lottery which implies that they find no use to continue the tradition due to losing its purpose of its meaning over time. Therefore, it comes as a surprise that the people of this village continue the lottery every year even though they themselves don’t have the traditional items, salutes, chants and most importantly the purpose of the entire event in the first place. In conclusion, the shifting of point of view helps create the surprise ending by showing how the villagers happily prepared and participated in the event and by revealing that there was no purpose to the lottery in the first