Critical Review of a Short Story

First of all, a comment on the words “critical” and “criticism.” These words do not refer to “making negative comments.” They are actually neutral words that refer to making intelligent and learned comments.

This handout presents a critical review on a short story; in reality, critical reviews can be constructed on a variety of sources: movies, drama, and music, to name a few.

A reviewer is under no obligation to either like or dislike the source material. In fact, it is often best if statements of like and dislike are kept out of the writing. This way the reviewer can focus on analyzing the story.

Think of a critical review as an excuse to offer intelligent, insightful comments on a story. Show that you understand how the story is constructed or what makes it work. One way to do this is to apply literary terms to the story under discussion. In a way, the critical review can be seen as a culminating activity. You have learned much about analyzing literature; the critical review now provides an opportunity for you, the student, to assume the role of the expert.

A critical review of Shirley Jackson’s short masterpiece, “The Lottery.” [Mr. Moeller found it on the Internet; it’s not actually a great example of a critical review, but it does serve the purpose of showing what a critical review might look like.]

Reading “The Lottery” arouses bewilderment and curiosity, which can be accounted for by its astonishing ending. However, some of the story’s critics counter that “The Lottery’s” too unexpected finale can be attributed to the writer’s literary inexperience. On the other hand, Shirley Jackson effectively uses suspense or horror all throughout the story in order to develop the story’s unanticipated ending and subtle meaning.

Among the elements frequently criticized in Jackson’s “Lottery” are its ambiguous dialogue and its characters that are bluntly presented. “The Lottery’s” character development is indeed indistinct. However, Shirley Jackson used this as an advantage to develop her prevailing theme—the horror of man’s evil. As part of the development of this centralizing theme, Jackson omitted the exacting characterization of a protagonist or an antagonist. She does this by portraying everyone in the story as just an average person. From the beginning, the reader has difficulty in determining who the emerging protagonist of the story might be: is it Joe Summers or Old Man Warner, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, or Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson? The reason for steering clear of one definite protagonist is due to the story’s theme: all characters must be treated equally in order to prove that the ultimate sacrificial victim (the protagonist) could be anyone; thus the theme of the horror of man’s evil is further emphasized.

The next point to consider is Jackson’s imprecise style of delivering the short story. Again, this is purely intentional—the dialogue, tone, and the irony are all but elusive. The dialogue jumps from expected to unexpected remarks, as with Mr. Summer’s suggestions of replacing the black lottery box and the people’s reaction—including Old Man Warner’s mention that it was “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.”

The author’s tone remains detached. As Tessie cries out “It wasn’t fair… I think we ought to start over… I tell you it wasn’t fair,” none of those in the surrounding crowd are portrayed as showing any sympathy for her plight.

Irony, too, is prevalent, both verbally and dramatically—as with the two-sided expression of the black box symbolism and the characters’ prejudiced and hypocritical behavior. Mrs. Delacroix, for example, is supposed to be Tessie’s good friend; instead, she urges her to be a “good sport,” saying “All of us took the same chance” and, in the end, she selects a huge stone for throwing at her. Other examples of hypocrisy are the “friend’s loud whisper” hoping that it’s not Nancy; the crowd’s desires to terminate the lottery, yet they act naturally towards the result of the draw and with great fervor while doing the stone throwing; and Mr. Adams’ speaks of how the north village is considering stopping the lottery, yet he rushes to the front of the line of stone throwers.

All of this is in keeping with the suspenseful theme of “The Lottery.” The discrepancy in the expression of symbols and the succession of events and the characters’ behavior express the underlying supporting theme—that people struggle to maintain the lottery routine because they fear change, and that this mundane appearance disguises the morbid evils of man, thus making the central theme more horrific.

Finally, the point of view and plot that Jackson uses aids the development of suspense and theme throughout the story. Though the foreshadowing in “The Lottery” may be unrecognized, the use of the other literary elements mentioned above prove that Jackson intended to present “The Lottery” in such a way that later events are prepared for by earlier events. It is the narrator’s objective-omniscient point of view that obscures the story’s foreshadowing. On the other hand, this is the proper point of view for keeping with the theme of detached cruelty that dominates the entire narrative.

“The Lottery’s” characters, style, tone, plot, point of view, and interplay of themes are all developed around the central theme of the story—how horrible the cruelty of man can be. Shirley Jackson’s use—or intended lack of use—of these short story elements sets the atmosphere of the story, creates the theme of suspense and horror, and finally prepares for the story’s shock ending. These elements make “The Lottery” an interesting and credible literary piece, no matter how controversial.

Requirements of the Critical Review

This will be a four-paragraph essay. Because it is four instead of five, your two body paragraphs should be even more beefy and full of insightful, weighty support sentences than usual.

ASSIGNMENT: Write a critical review of one of the short stories from the literature book, 800 – 1,000 words. The introductory and concluding paragraphs should be about 100 or 125 words each, which means that each body paragraph should be about 300 – 350 words—substantially longer than the intro and conclusion. Double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt. font.

· In the introductory paragraph, don’t mention the name of your story till the last sentence. Spend a few sentences making some statements about short stories in general; meanwhile, you are gradually “sneaking up” on the more specific thesis sentence. Your thesis sentence is the last sentence of the first paragraph; it names the short story and it makes a statement about the short story that the body paragraphs will support. The thesis statement should be at a more general level than the two topic sentences of the two body paragraphs.

· Each body paragraph must begin with a topic sentence. It might be a good idea to mention in your topic sentence the literary term or terms you will be discussing within the paragraph.

· Possibly the worst thing you can do is retell the story. Assume the reader knows the story. Lines like “In this story this happens and this happens and this happens” will severely lower your grade.

· The reader has read the story, but only understands the story on a surface, superficial level. Your body paragraphs allow the reader to understand certain elements of the story that, without your assistance, the reader would not have understood.

· You are discussing a story, and that story consists of words. It would be almost impossible to tell someone about this story without using some of the words from the story. Your quoting should sound natural. Quotations should serve some purpose, as opposed to being irrelevant or appearing forced. In other words, your quotations should be supporting the main idea of the paragraph, as expressed by the topic sentence. Cite all quotations using MLA in-text citation. If possible, avoid quoting words that are part of the story’s dialogue; in other words, try to avoid quoting words that are already inside quotation marks.

· The conclusion should bring the essay to a satisfactory close without simply restating what was already said in the essay.

· Try to employ quality writing. Your writing voice should model the voice of an intelligent, educated writer as much as possible. Sentence structure should display occasional signs of complexity. Some attempts at higher-level vocabulary (without stretching too far) should be evident.

· You are accountable for using the information from “Typing Conventions,” “Formatted Document Sample,” and each of the “How to” links found on Mr. Moeller’s Web page. This means that the paper should be formatted correctly and should be close to error-free.

· Create a Works Cited page and include that Works Cited page as the last page of your essay.