Here are some examples of irony in The Lottery. The title of the story, The Lottery, is ironic. The word lottery has a positive connotation and implies that players want to win. A. How does Shirley Jackson use a literary element to show the central idea of The Lottery The Lottery. Literature describes many aspects of life that are often overlooked. Most of the time, people overlook complex things to try to simplify everything and vice versa. An example of this is simplifying a person's life when it should be complex, with many considerations. One of the works of literature that did this was The Notorious. Shirley Jackson certainly puts Cook's words into action in her short story, The Lottery Composed after World War II, she investigates thoughts such as communal violence, individual vulnerability, and the dangers of uncritically following tradition.