Short Stories: Themes and Traditions

The Lottery

• The story depicts a tradition where a person is sacrificed for a good harvest
• Families participate in the ritual by drawing names from a black box
• The person whose name is drawn is stoned to death
• Themes include human nature (are people born bad or made bad?), power of tradition, and family structures/gender roles

The Box-Social

• Sylvia, an ill woman, returns to her aunt's home
• She experiences flashbacks while decorating a box
• At a box-social, where women create lunchboxes, Sylvia's neighbor bids on her box
• The box contains a stillborn baby, and Sylvia feels immense hatred and kills the baby
• Themes include women's rights and tradition. The tradition of not allowing for mothers who have babies outside of marriage is a driving factor for Sylvia's actions

The Gift of the Magi

• A poor couple sacrifices their most prized possessions to buy gifts for each other
• The wife sells her hair for a watch chain and the husband sells his watch to buy combs
• The story emphasizes selfless love and the rejection of material possessions

The Necklace

• A wife desires a life of luxury
• She borrows a necklace for a party
• The necklace is lost and the couple works relentlessly to replace it
• They realize the importance of material goods not always equalling happiness
• The story warns against greed and materialism.

Literary Devices

• Simile: Comparison using "like" or "as"
• Metaphor: Comparison without "like" or "as"
• Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds
• Imagery: Descriptive language appealing to the senses
• Pathetic Fallacy: Environment mirroring emotions
• Hyperbole: Exaggeration
• Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things
• Allusion: Indirect reference to another work

Julius Caesar

• Pathos: Evoking pity or sadness through emotion
• Logos: Using logical reasoning and facts
• Ethos: Appealing to credibility, character and authority
• Themes are explored through speeches and actions of characters, like Antony's use of emotion to gain support

The Chrysalids

• Key characters are needed to be explicitly listed
• Themes include the importance of adaptability and change, dangers of blind conformity, and exploration of potential for evolution

Explore the intricate themes of sacrifice, tradition, and gender roles in classic short stories like 'The Lottery', 'The Box-Social', and 'The Gift of the Magi'. Understand how these narratives reflect human nature and societal expectations. Join this quiz to delve into profound literary analyses.