Question

Hi everyone, i have a trouble on writing a essay. The instructor assigned to read a story . He said we need to find the theme and the idea of the story, then provide textual evidence to support my thesis. How should i get started? I mean the structure, how does it look like??

Answer 1

well you can take simply info and put it all together to form sentences that flow together, as well as following the story. make a thesis, but have it flow into talking about the story, it all depends on how much you want to write. for example, 1 paragraph which is the first could be your thesis and you describing little of the story in it but giving your opinion/ feels for it. then a second one could be you getting into theme using evidence. lastly do another paragraph recapping your thesis and the info you did. if it needs to be more then 3 paragraphs then add more detail. hope this helps :)

Answer 2

Thank you ^^ i have 1 more question. Do you know any better way to revise my essay? I cannot do this by myself. Because im a foreign speaker, and I cannot tell the difference or faults by myself. Sometimes i know there is something wrong, but dont know what it is. :(

Answer 3

i can revise it for you :)

Answer 4

send me it so i can revise it. ill either be able to tonight or early tomorrow. its 12am here

Answer 5

unless youd like to revise it fully yourself.

Answer 6

You are so kind :P ill try to finish it today.

Answer 7

just send me it in messages and i can get to it within like 12-18 hours. im tired now. i think i will go to bed.

Answer 8

no problem! have a good dream ^^

Answer 9

toodles.

Answer 10

The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson, presents an intriguing account of events occurring in a small, rural village. The events spread from lottery, a tradition of the village. It flows from a peaceful atmosphere, in which villagers make fun and play with each other, to a tragedy of Mrs. Hutchinson being hit by rocks. The story was written after World War II. "The general public wanted to leave behind the horrors of war and genocide. They craved comfort, normalcy, and old-fashioned values." (Aldrich) Jackson brings out the theme of tradition. She implies its danger of being invariable, and its negative effect when inducing the hideous humanity by the tradition of superstition, and randomness of persecution.
In The Lottery, it is a tragedy when villagers stone on somebody, although there is no any outcome that present what happened after the stoning. The invariable of tradition event in this old and rural village is the biggest flaw. It is no doubt that history provides a platform of how to avoid of making the same mistake of our ancestors. Tradition is what we learnt from the history and convert it into a formula. However, time is clocking, everything is changing at every moment. It is always better to adjust and eliminate the faults and left the good. Otherwise, it will create tons of conflict and tragedy with trite concept. The issue of girl infanticide is one of the examples. Because of the environment they suffered and the inflexible idea passed from fathers, elders would prefer to have more male offspring than females.
The issue of superstition usually comes along with tradition. It is a sort of brainwashing, in which people always be affected unconsciously. Old Man Warner in The Lottery is the perfect example who was brainwashed by tradition. His name shows his destiny in the story, a guardian of tradition, that to warn and make sure people to follow the tradition. In the story, he claims that "lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." He believes it will be heavy harvest after finishing the lottery. Illiteracy leads to the tradition of superstition. Old Man Warner might not even know how the ritual works to increase their harvest, or the concept behind it. He was just blindly following the tradition that has been told for decades.
The black box symbols the tradition, in which passes to generations, and defines the destiny of villagers. Its randomness leads to the tragedy of the ending. Lottery, as an event plays with probability, contains luck. Especially, it should not be presented such randomness in a solemn ritual. Eventually, it is talking about someone's life. However, from the beginning of the story, the atmosphere is so harmonious, adults and children joke with each other. Lottery usually means someone will win something. It is hard to imagine the actual outcome of the lottery that the winner. Tessie Hutchinson, will be persecuted. Even more, the children are involved with the stones they gathered. Without telling the ending, it seems like a fairy tale that always has a happy ending.
As the story flows to the end, the image of villagers is turning into hideous and ruthless from kindhearted. Tessie Hutchinson doesn't have to be stoned if she didn't protest the result for her husband, but she did because she loves him. She kept saying "it is not fair." Later, when she got the slip of paper with a black spot, her husband suddenly becomes a stranger. Under the selfishness inducing from this traditional event, he mercilessly forced the slip of paper out of her hand and announces the result. The cruelness presents the highest point when Old Man Warner instigates villagers, both adults and children, to stone on Tessie; and after Mr. Summers said, "Let's finish quickly." The tone of Mr. Summers was just like want to finish a meal quickly. There is no big deal to persecute someone for them, as long as they have the excuse of practicing tradition.
By looking at the outcome of the story, tradition is not always a good thing. Shirley Jackson shows the negative side of tradition of being blind follows. And the randomness of the event itself has a big problem too. The hideous humanity emerged from it gives an alarm of if we should consider the value and meaning when such tragedy occurs.