Old Man Warner
E725663
Old Man Warner is the oldest and most traditionalist villager in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” embodying unquestioning adherence to the town’s brutal ritual.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Old Man Warner canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8316665 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Old Man Warner Context triple: [The Lottery, notableCharacter, Old Man Warner]
-
A.
Old Man
"Old Man" is a classic folk-rock song by Neil Young, known for its reflective lyrics about aging and life perspective, originally released on his 1972 album "Harvest."
-
B.
George Land
George Land is the largest island in the remote Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land in northern Russia.
-
C.
the Old Man
The Old Man is a central, symbolic figure in Ernest Hemingway’s novella "The Old Man and the Sea," representing endurance, dignity, and the human struggle against overwhelming odds.
-
D.
Prior Velho
Prior Velho is a locality in the Lisbon metropolitan area of Portugal, situated near the town of Sacavém and close to Lisbon’s main airport.
-
E.
Weni the Elder
Weni the Elder was a prominent ancient Egyptian official and military commander who served several pharaohs during the Sixth Dynasty, known from his detailed autobiographical tomb inscription.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Old Man Warner Target entity description: Old Man Warner is the oldest and most traditionalist villager in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” embodying unquestioning adherence to the town’s brutal ritual.
-
A.
Old Man
"Old Man" is a classic folk-rock song by Neil Young, known for its reflective lyrics about aging and life perspective, originally released on his 1972 album "Harvest."
-
B.
George Land
George Land is the largest island in the remote Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land in northern Russia.
-
C.
the Old Man
The Old Man is a central, symbolic figure in Ernest Hemingway’s novella "The Old Man and the Sea," representing endurance, dignity, and the human struggle against overwhelming odds.
-
D.
Prior Velho
Prior Velho is a locality in the Lisbon metropolitan area of Portugal, situated near the town of Sacavém and close to Lisbon’s main airport.
-
E.
Weni the Elder
Weni the Elder was a prominent ancient Egyptian official and military commander who served several pharaohs during the Sixth Dynasty, known from his detailed autobiographical tomb inscription.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
literary character ⓘ |
| age | oldest man in the village ⓘ |
| alignment | supports the town’s violent custom ⓘ |
| appearsIn |
"The Lottery"
ⓘ
linked to:
The Lottery
|
| associatedTheme |
mob mentality
ⓘ
resistance to change ⓘ ritualized violence ⓘ tradition versus morality ⓘ |
| attitudeTowardRitual | refuses to consider ending the lottery ⓘ |
| characterTrait |
authoritarian
ⓘ
conformist ⓘ conservative ⓘ stubborn ⓘ superstitious ⓘ traditionalist ⓘ |
| createdBy | Shirley Jackson ⓘ |
| famousLine |
"Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon"
ⓘ
"There’s always been a lottery" ⓘ |
| firstPublicationContext | appears in a story first published in The New Yorker in 1948 ⓘ |
| gender | male ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | English ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | 20th-century American literature ⓘ |
| medium | prose fiction ⓘ |
| narrativeFunction |
justifies the violence of the lottery
ⓘ
voice of the village’s collective tradition ⓘ |
| nationality | American (fictional) ⓘ |
| opposesChangeTo | the lottery ⓘ |
| participationCount | seventy-seven lotteries ⓘ |
| perceptionByOthers | respected as an authority on the lottery ⓘ |
| roleInWork |
defender of the lottery
ⓘ
supporting character ⓘ symbol of tradition ⓘ |
| setting | unnamed rural American village ⓘ |
| supportsRitual | the lottery ⓘ |
| symbolizes |
social pressure to conform
ⓘ
the dangers of blind obedience ⓘ unquestioning adherence to tradition ⓘ |
| viewOnDissenters | considers them "crazy" or foolish ⓘ |
| viewOnLottery | sees it as necessary for the village’s well-being ⓘ |
| viewOnOtherTowns | criticizes towns that have given up the lottery ⓘ |
| workGenre |
dark satire
ⓘ
psychological horror ⓘ short story ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Old Man Warner Description of subject: Old Man Warner is the oldest and most traditionalist villager in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” embodying unquestioning adherence to the town’s brutal ritual.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.