Saturday, March 21, 2020

Analysis of The Lottery Research Paper Example

Analysis of The Lottery Research Paper Example Analysis of The Lottery Paper Analysis of The Lottery Paper When someone gets in trouble unfairly, people could protest against unfairness or could obey the unfairness. The Lottery, is a short story written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, shows dark sides hidden in peoples minds. This story was influenced after the World War II, so peoples brutality from the war is reflected to this story. In this story, there is an annual lottery that the result of winning is stoned. Jackson uses symbolism to imply that blind obedience to radiation can be dangerous and peoples inconsolableness. At first, names of each character have specific meanings. Jackson uses symbolic names to connote a forthcoming event after the lottery. For examples, the name, Mr.. Summers (1238), is associated with warmth, blooming, blossoming, youth and sunlight, so the author uses this name ironically. Also, it implies the lottery is held in summer season. The next symbol is Mr.. Graves (1238) who is an assistant of Mr.. Summers. A grave means a place of burial for a dead body. Therefore, readers can infer that a tragedy will come at the end. Also, by showing two opposite names, oppositeness and negatives always exist together. Secondly, a black box which keeps slips of papers exists. The black box is a symbol of tradition of the town. The box is described as The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago (1238). It shows even though the original box had been lost, the old tradition has never changed and questioned. Also, she states, Mr.. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box (1238). Based on this ascription, she shows people in the town do not want to change their old tradition and want to settle for the present without any wiliness even though they have a chance to be changed. Actually, the slips of papers substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. It seems that people tried to change their old customs; however, it is for their convenience, not for revolution. In addition to, the black color symbolize death or evil, so Jackson implies that a result from the black box is punishment. Also, she uses black color to show peoples fear to the lottery impliedly. The next symbol is the stones that kill Mrs.. Hutchinson. At first, Jackson describes the situation of the day: Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example (1238). Jackson uses innocent children as people who accumulate stones. In this scene, she describes the deadly lottery game as a simple play by using pure objects. Also, she depicts the stone with innocuous words: the smoothest and roundest stones (1238) which is contrary to the tragedy end. By doing so, people feel they get rid of their guilty because, at least, they use items cooking not bad on the exterior. However, at the last scene, the stones are used as punishment tools by people who do not pick up a winning slip. It shows peoples selfishness because the citizens throw the stones only for their future which means harvest. The last and the central symbol is the lottery itself. Actually, winning in a lottery game is related to being lucky. However, In The Lottery, it means death and sacrifice. Jackson implies peoples madness from the lottery. For example, she states Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. (1241 ). They believe hat killing a person by stones bring them a rich year. Therefore, they attempt to rationalize their barbaric and heartless tradition. Also, this story shows peoples obedience to power and conventionality when Mr.. Hutchinson picked up the winning slip. Mr.. Hutchinson says Shut up Testis (1241) to his wife who is Mrs.. Hutchinson and at the last scene, when his wife was decided to get stoned, Jackson depicts his attitude to his wife: Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced to the slip of paper out Of her hand (1243) . Even though Testis Hutchinson is his wife, Bill treats Testis cruelly. It also shows peoples selfishness. After starting throwing stones, Testis tries to run away, but she is caught by people soon. The tradition will be lasting after this year lottery. At the last scene Testis shouts out: It isnt fair, it isnt right (1243), and it implies the tradition is unfair and it should be changed, yet people do not think of changing their old customs. In conclusion, the use of symbolism in The Lottery is very clearly. The author implicates symbols in the story in a society at that time. In my opinion, Shirley Jackson wants to indicate our society in her story. This story strongly shows collectivity, selfishness and madness of people. The tradition represented as the lottery is shown not to be changed and unquestioned by peoples obedience. Additionally, this story shows that dill makes a joke to his wife and then kills her in a short time it shows how cruel people are. Overall, the author uses symbols indirectly, but also very obvious to imply peoples madness and selfishness.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

How to Estimate Standard Deviations (SD)

How to Estimate Standard Deviations (SD) The standard deviation and range are both measures of the spread of a data set. Each number tells us in its own way how spaced out the data are, as they are both a measure of variation.  Although there is not an explicit relationship between the range and standard deviation, there is a rule of thumb that can be useful to relate these two statistics.  This relationship is sometimes referred to as the range rule for standard deviation. The range rule tells us that the standard deviation of a sample is approximately equal to one-fourth of the range of the data. In other words s (Maximum – Minimum)/4. This is a very straightforward formula to use, and should only be used as a very rough estimate of the standard deviation. An Example To see an example of how the range rule works, we will look at the following example. Suppose we start with the data values of 12, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 18, 20, 20, 25. These values have a mean of 17 and a standard deviation of about 4.1. If instead we first calculate the range of our data as 25 – 12 13 and then divide this number by four we have our estimate of the standard deviation as 13/4 3.25. This number is relatively close to the true standard deviation and good for a rough estimate. Why Does It Work? It may seem like the range rule is a bit strange. Why does it work? Doesn’t it seem completely arbitrary to just divide the range by four? Why wouldn’t we divide by a different number? There is actually some mathematical justification going on behind the scenes. Recall the properties of the bell curve and the probabilities from a standard normal distribution. One feature has to do with the amount of data that falls within a certain number of standard deviations: Approximately 68% of the data is within one standard deviation (higher or lower) from the mean.Approximately 95% of the data is within two standard deviations (higher or lower) from the mean.Approximately 99% is within three standard deviations (higher or lower) from the mean. The number that we will use has to do with 95%. We can say that 95% from two standard deviations below the mean to two standard deviations above the mean, we have 95% of our data. Thus nearly all of our normal distribution would stretch out over a line segment that is a total of four standard deviations long. Not all data is normally distributed and bell curve shaped. But most data is well-behaved enough that going two standard deviations away from the mean captures nearly all of the data. We estimate and say that four standard deviations are approximately the size of the range, and so the range divided by four is a rough approximation of the standard deviation. Uses for the Range Rule The range rule is helpful in a number of settings. First, it is a very quick estimate of the standard deviation. The standard deviation requires us to first find the mean, then subtract this mean from each data point, square the differences, add these, divide by one less than the number of data points, then (finally) take the square root. On the other hand, the range rule only requires one subtraction and one division. Other places where the range rule is helpful is when we have incomplete information. Formulas such as that to determine sample size require three pieces of information: the desired margin of error, the level of confidence and the standard deviation of the population we are investigating. Many times it is impossible to know what the population standard deviation is. With the range rule, we can estimate this statistic, and then know how large we should make our sample.