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Symbolism in "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

In this literary analysis of "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, the student breaks down three ways the author uses symbolism to portray the deeper meaning about human sacrifice. Specifically, the student focuses on how character names, the black box, and the stones convey specific meaning.
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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

More essays like this:

Not sure what I'd do without @Kibin
- Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University
Exactly what I needed.
- Jenna Kraig, student @ UCLA
Wow. Most helpful essay resource ever!
- Chris Stochs, student @ UC Berkeley

View other essays like this one:

Crystal's feedback:

"You do an excellent job with setting up the background in the intro regarding the symbolism in “The Lottery.” Also,
great job on not falling into the trap of using too much summary; you include just the details needed to support your analysis on the use of character names, the black box, and the stones as symbols. Your conclusion was also stellar overall--bravo!

However, your thesis is a bit broadly defined in the final sentence of the intro; consider streamlining the main points about the three ways symbolism are used into one detailed sentence. The between-sentence flow also feels choppy in some areas, especially in the intro and when connecting the quotes to the broader analysis in the body paragraphs. Consider ways you can more deeply engage with the quotes; right now, the connections are logically clear between your points of analysis and the representative quotes, but the wording doesn’t always smoothly connect all the dots/draw in the quotes. In addition, in the first body paragraph, the main idea for the paragraph should be in your own words as the topic sentence rather than opening with a quote.

Finally, some minor areas to address include cleaning up the formatting, touching up the few grammar and punctuation mistakes present, and revisiting MLA guidelines on the URLs, especially for when there’s a login requirement and on omitting the https://, and the formatting for the title of the Works Cited page."

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