How Does Shirley Jackson Use Tradition In The Lottery

Traditions are based all around us. Today’s society has many traditions like family traditions, holiday traditions, southern traditions, and so many more. Although most traditions are harmless, it is not always best to follow tradition. Sometimes following tradition can be dangerous. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” villagers participate in an annual drawing, and the winner gets stoned. The villagers are blind to how cruel and brutal it is because of their commitment to this tradition and to that society. Fear is what is keeping this village from breaking such an act. The fear of actually giving up this tradition and society is what is keeping this brutal act existent. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a perfect example that following tradition

Would you stone your neighborhood to death for the sake of tradition? Shirley Jackson wrote The Lottery in 1948 to tell a story about how savage people can be for tradition. The story is about a small town who has a yearly lottery and the winner gets stoned to death by their neighbors. The thought is that if you have a lottery, then you will have good crops that season. This short story tells the tale of poor Tessie Hutchinson who is stoned by her own town, her son helps too. In the short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson argues that all people, regardless of how civilized they may seem, are capable of great evil by contrasting seemingly pleasant and relatable details of the town with the shocking barbarity of their tradition.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a small village where they have a strange annual tradition. The tradition is a lottery where whoever “wins” is stoned to death by the other townspeople. Why would they do such a horrible thing to their friends and family members? They started the lottery as a sacrifice for good luck. They wanted good crops for the year and they thought a human sacrifice would help them. But, now most of the people no longer think it helps the crops. Most probably think it's wrong to murder someone just because they lost the lottery, but they are terrified to upset tradition, so they blindly continue the lottery.

Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 4). The lottery has been around for many years and only some villages realize that it is bad. Unlike the village that Old Man Warner is in, they think that the lottery is perfectly fine. “Some places have already quit the lotteries.” Mrs Adams said. (Jackson 4). “Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools” (Jackson 4). Old Man Warner thinks that the lottery is okay, it seems as if he doesn’t care about the villagers in his village, he seems to only care about tradition and the

The short story, “The Lottery by Shirley Jackson”, shows how scapegoatism forms violence and cruelty behind the story's structural character Old Man Warner. Warners meaning towards the stoning was that one had to have a connection with fertility in order to have successful crop growth. Warners behavior towards the ritual tradition has changed many things from wooded chips to slips of paper to the black box symbolizing death, and continuing to use stones in their ritual.

Most people have some sort of tradition that they follow, be it a family tradition or a morning routine, while most are harmless or have some positive effect there are a few that exist that are negative. This could be made worse if one such negative tradition takes over their life. In “The Lottery” the townsfolk gather for what at first seems like a harmless, fun tradition, a yearly lottery. But, as the story progresses it becomes apparent that there is more going on that first meets the eye. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” uses symbolism to show the theme: tradition isn’t always right, dialogue to get readers predicting and start to reveal the sinister nature of what was really going on in the story, and revealing actions to raise the

It is sad that misuse of rituals could lead people to death. “The Lottery” illustrates a rural town with small population doing a drawing yearly to pick one person and stone him (her) to death. People follow rituals to remember the elders or being moral; it’s not the way of

Traditions are widespread among many different people and cultures; It is an explanation for acting without thinking. Not all traditions are a good thing, though, and blindly following them can lead to harsh consequences. The villagers in a small town in “The Lottery” gather together annually to participate in this tradition, where one person in the town is randomly chosen in a drawing to be violently stoned to death by citizens. It has been around for seventy-seven years and everyone partakes in it. People always attend, showing the importance of tradition amongst the society. However, in the short story, “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson uses many literary devices to show that traditions are not always meant to be followed.

It is human nature to uphold tradition. Shirley Jackson’s  “The Lottery” display’s the issue with society unquestioning approach to institutions. The shocking tale, which takes place in a fictional unnamed town in America, convey’s the dangers of clinging to tradition and not questioning the the institutions that practice them, and just how common they occur. Accordingly, these dangers manifest in the way the characters of the story accept the process of the lottery, but do not comprehend its purpose, the older generation’s disdainful view of noncompliance with tradition, and the townspeople’s callous demeanor in stoning Mrs. Hutchinson.

Could you take a hand in killing someone from your community, a neighbor, a friend? What if it was part of a sacred rite? What if it was for some greater good? This is precisely the moral dilemma posed by author Shirley Jackson in her famous short story, “The Lottery.” In the story, a village is required to cull one of its members. In a yearly tradition, everyone gathers to select one person by way of random lottery, and then they stone them to death. As barbaric as the sacrifice is, everyone seems to go through the ritual with an air of resolved finality. “The Lottery” examines the idea of what is required of a person in society, what that society considers to be good, and where the line between the two should be drawn.

Stephen L. Carter, an American law professor at Yale University said, “When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it's not self-defense. It's an execution.” In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, townspeople randomly persecute their peers. Victims of the strange tradition are guilty of no transgression other than having drawn a marked slip of paper from a box. The villagers turned against the victim without hesitation; the instant that Tessie Hutchinson chose the marked slip of paper, she lost her identity as a popular housewife and became prey. Tessie’s closest friends and family eagerly participated in the killing with as much enthusiasm as everyone else. Jackson mislead the audience by portraying a false sense of community and proved that

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” illustrates several aspects of the darker side of human nature. The villagers in Jackson’s “The Lottery” unquestioningly adhere to a tradition which seems to have lost its relevance and meaning to their lives even when it requires that they brutally kill by stoning one of their neighbors and friends. The ritual that is the lottery shows how easily and willingly people will give up their free will and suspend their consciences to conform to rituals and people in authority. The same mindless complacency and obedience shown by the villagers in Jackson’s story are seen in human behavior throughout history and are still visible in current events seen today. Religion and higher authority are able to convince people to commit horrendous crimes against other human beings without hesitation or guilt. In religion, ritual can be a substitute for taking responsibility for one’s actions or even thinking for oneself. The behavior shown by the villagers can also be compared to human beings cruel enjoyment of the suffering of other human beings. This side of

In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, it can be very dangerous to follow traditions blindly without knowing about the horrible consequences. When one follows traditions and laws and never questions or seeks to understand the reason for them, the inevitable outcome often brings sorrow. Indeed blind devotion to complying with rules that destroys the human spirit by removing choice, and continuing rituals with dark consequences, and punishing anyone who objects to following tradition. Complying with rules that helps lead to destroying the human spirit is dangerous because individuals should always have the choice to follow those rules. The blind devotion of the village participating in the town’s yearly lottery is the clear example why all rules aren’t always positive. Rituals can be looked upon as positive but they also can have a negative connotation when they lead to dangerous consequences. The village in the story has a ritual every year to hold a lottery, where the winner is stoned to death and this is a clear example how a ritual can be viewed negatively. Traditions are beliefs passed down between generations of a family or culture. They are things we do by choice because they are enjoyable and meaningful for the people involved. Traditions in the story have a dark side to it because the tradition in this village is to kill one of members of the village using a lottery system. The dark side of “The Lottery”, is substantial with many down falls of

Does a society just pick and choose which part of a tradition they want to keep? One tends to remember the actions and the objects necessary to proceed with a ritual, but one may forget the purpose or the reason behind it. Is one correct in continuing a tradition even though there is a victim involved? The individual, as part of a society, is afraid of ridicule.  If one ends a tradition, and society still behaves in the manner they were taught, then ridicule will be the result. "The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions," shows that the meaning and purpose behind the ritual had been lost and the society just acting it out through repetition. The villagers, who remember some bits of history about those forgotten aspects of the ritual, ARE NOT even definite about the accuracy of

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, was a superstition because the town was afraid that they would not receive enough food when the harvesting season arrives. This counts as a superstition as it may be considered “bad luck” if they do not conduct the lottery, similar to the superstitions today, such as “Walking under a ladder” or “A black cat crossing the street”. According to Old Man Warner on line 277, “ Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon…soon we’d all be back to eating stewed chickweed and acorns.” Consequently, this superstition evolved into blindly following tradition, as the majority of the population in the town were afraid of winning the lottery, not wanting to get stoned to death. If they considered it a religious tradition,