The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, is a story about the annual lottery drawing in a small town. The story is set in a small New England town. Every year a lottery is organized in which a person has to be randomly chosen to be stoned to death by the villagers. The lottery has been practiced by citizens for over seventy years. Using symbolism, Jackson uses names, objects, and the setting to hide the true meaning and intention of the lottery. The names of each character have significant meanings for the lottery. Jackson uses symbolic names to indicate and foreshadow what will happen after the lottery takes place. The name “Dellacroix” (Jackson, 2) is the meaning of “Of the cross” in French. In this sentence, "Summers" (Jackson, 4) is the name of the lottery host's gentleman. The lottery takes place during the summer and Mr. Summer's assistant is “Mr. Graves” (Jackson. 4). This suggests that there will be a “Tomb” during the “summer”. The author uses the names to wish the winner the prize: a violent stoning by the citizens. The objects in the story also represent religious and symbolic meanings of the lottery. This phrase “Bobby Martin had already filled his pockets with rocks, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest rocks;” (Jackson,2) shows that children collected smooth stones. Most rocks are jagged, knife-like and tapered. The reason they picked the smoother rocks was because the jagged rocks would do more. The author paints a picture of a city where "flowers bloomed profusely and the grass was richly green." (Jackson, 1) . Jackson wants readers to believe that the town was ordinary and innocent, but it ends in a shocking ending with a terrible stoning. Many readers were shocked, they thought that Jackson's story was fiction, but religious persecution happens in every part of the world and readers were unable to accept the horrible