Shirley Jackson is probably best known for her short story "The Lottery," which was first published in the June 26, 1984 edition of the New Yorker (Russo 1251). The story centers around a village on the day of the annual lottery. His intention is to ensure enough rain to have a successful corn crop the following June. The story revolves around the illusory belief that if the villagers sacrifice one of their own they will be rewarded and have good harvests. In the story "The Lottery", Jackson applies three of the many elements: theme, irony and symbolism. In "The Lottery", Jackson portrays three main themes including scapegoating, tradition and violence. In this country the scapegoat serves to ward off the evils of society so that the crops flourish (Mazzeno 2457). Tessie Hutchinson, the woman who won the lottery, is scapegoated for the year the lottery takes place, implying that the lottery is an annual event, which leads to the next theme, tradition. As Shirley Jackson wrote, “People had done it so many times that they were only half-listening to the directions; most of them stood silently, wetting their lips, without looking around” (263). This suggests that the villagers memorized the directions through participation in many lotteries. In “Short Stories for Students,” Jackson also addresses the psychology behind mass cruelty by presenting a community whose citizens refuse to present themselves as individuals and oppose the lottery and who instead unquestionably take part in the killing of an innocent and accepted member of the their village. without apparent pain or remorse (142). The title of the story “The Lottery” is ironic. Reading the title, the reader would assume that... middle of the paper... the publication of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" in the New Yorker in June 1948. The scandal could be elements applied in the story: theme, irony and symbolism. In "The Lottery", Jackson suggests that anyone could kill an innocent person based on tradition for the well-being of a village as the theme of the story. The title of Jackson's story makes great use of irony because it conceives a completely different idea until it is read. By setting “The Lottery” on June 27, a day near the summer solstice when ancient rituals were performed, Jackson connects the similarities to ancient rituals. The story's surprise ending and its unflattering depiction of human nature must have been particularly disturbing to readers in the late 1940s, when Americans were particularly proud of the role they had played in defeating the Nazis in World War II ( Du Bose 3341).