Scapegoat : A Necessary Convenience Of Society

“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Twain). The Lottery begins during the summer. A small, seemingly normal, town is gathering to throw the annual “Lottery”. In the end, the townspeople—children included—gather around and stone the winner to death, simply because it was tradition. The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective. “I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson). As humans develop as a race, their practices should develop with them. Shirley Jackson develops the

Despite the fact that they have yearly stonings, the townspeople are relatively nice. They have many community gatherings that are happy, unlike the lottery. Mr. Summers conducts the lottery along with “the square dances, the teenage club, and Halloween program.” It is very obvious that Mr. Summers, is not a bad man, so he cannot, and should not be blamed for the lottery. The lottery makes all the townspeople look cruel and dehumanizing, but they are not, it is just the lottery that is awful. This goes to show that the people do horrible things even if they are not horrible people. Secondly, all the town does the lottery so that they can have good crops that season. “Lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon.” Good crops lead to good sales

In The Lottery, the authority figure is the ritualistic lottery itself. The town is undergoing its annual lottery drawing. Ironically, the lottery winner (Hutchinson) does not win what most would associate with a prize. Instead, the lottery winner receives a death by stoning from the other villagers. These villagers are anxious to get this annual

In Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery," what appears to be an ordinary day in a small town takes an evil turn when a woman is stoned to death after "winning" the town lottery. The lottery in this story reflects an old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order to encourage the growth of crops. But this story is not about the past, for through the actions of the town, Jackson shows us many of the social ills that exist in our own lives.

An obsession exists in the world today based solely upon the use of scapegoats. According to the dictionary, a scapegoat consists of a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. Some of the most influential scapegoats consist of Jesus Christ taking suffering for the sins of civilization, the Jewish population being punished for the problems in Germany, and more recently the U.S. citizens who perished in 9/11 being punished for the sins of America. Scapegoats have come in many forms over time and have been very destructive. The usage of scapegoats in our society, such as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, has proved to be damaging, and an end must be found in order to find peace.

«The lottery» is an allegory which was written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. In it, she used an irony to show how inane could be some traditions and people who essentially follow them. The lottery - is the ritual when all people from the small village crowd together and Mr. Summers, who enjoys devoting civic activities, organizes this event. He and his assistant make a small piece of paper and one of these has a black dot. They put it into the shabby black box, after Mr. Summers call head of household to determine who will «win» the lottery. But the winner should not be happy, because all other citizens will stone the winner to death. People do it annually, because they afraid that the harvest could be poor. Everyone must participate, regardless of gender and age. This short story contains a lot of different characters to explain how belief in something abnormal of previous generations can strongly affect traditions and consider morality.

Proof of the author’s intent is clearly seen in nearly all aspects of her text. The Lottery is a thematic mirror image of the Second World War; the townsfolk use a lottery to determine whom to kill on an annual basis, their victims a scapegoat for all their misfortunes. “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” is a line said by Old Man Warner, a traditionalist and staunch supporter of the lottery. His words further prove the point that the townsfolk believe that killing an individual at random each year will bring about good fortune and prevent all misfortune. This is an attitude that mirrors the behavior of the former Nazi government in Germany. The fascist government made use of propaganda to foster nationalist sentiment amongst the German peoples and slowly but surely promoted a message of hatred towards the Jews and eventually all other races were deemed inferior. The Jews in particular were singled out as the source of all of Germany’s problems, at first

The lottery is a sacrifice to bring good luck in the harvest season. The text shows this on page 14 line 33-34 when the men are talking about farming before the lottery begins. This evidence supports the claim because the men may be worried about their crops and hoping they will improve

"It isn't fair, it isn't right, Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her" (Jackson). Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is brimming with illustrations of how thoughtless repetition dilutes foundations that were once rock solid. The traditions of the village in the story lead to the stoning to death of one of the residents on a yearly basis. The people were not so clear as to how, when, or why this took place every year; however, this did not stop them from continuing with an encore. The limited view they had on life and of growth was the road block that prevented any major change. Traditions can overcome society's better judgement.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” shows society’s avoidance of change, need for a scapegoat. Each year people are given a chance to start over. An opportunity to set goals to live healthy, go back to school, save money, and advance in a current career. With goals comes change, and change is a challenge not often welcomed in many. Excuses, a personal scapegoat are made to avoid sticking to the change. Mark Twain took a look at New Year’s, as an annual example of promises to oneself, only to find failure even before the first 30 days are complete. Twain stated, “New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for

In "The Lottery," a small town follows its tradition although it does not even remember how the custom came about in the first place. The town folk do not even remember all the elements of this lottery. The original black box has been lost, but the new one, that is at least 80 years old, was made from parts of the original one. In this grotesque depiction of tradition, it is the custom of the townspeople to sacrifice a member of their community so the corn harvest is plentiful. Even the manner in which the person is killed is bizarre, stoning. No one seems to know why the lottery takes place, but they ridicule other towns that have stopped performing this ritual. Shirley Jackson is clearly letting us know what she

Griffin, Amy A. in his article “ The lottery” asserts that,” in shirley jackson’s “ The Lottery’’ A good harvest has always been vital to civilizations. After the fields have been prepared and the seeds sown, the farmer can only wait and hope that the proper balance of rain and sun will ensure a good harvest. From this hope spring ritual. Many ancient cultures believe that growing crops represented the life cycle, beginning with what one associates with the end death. Seeds buried,apparently without hope of germination, represent death, but with the life forces of water and the sun, the seeds grows, representing rebirth, consequently, ancient peoples began sacrificial rituals to emulate this resurrection cycle. What began as a vegetation ritual developed into a cathartic cleansing of an entire tribe or village. By transferring one's sins to person or animals and then sacrificing them, people believe that their sins would be eliminated, a process that has been termed the "scapegoat" archetype ( guerin et al. 158). In her short story "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson uses this archetype to build on man's inherent need for such ritual. (44).

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story that ventures among years of traditional values that a small community is continuing to keep alive, through a yearly event in order to ensure a good harvest. This yearly event that became a tradition where it involves everyone in the small town to participate has become known to them as “The Lottery.” Though their lottery winner did not receive any money or reward, they instead are chosen as the yearly “sacrifice” to ensure successful crops. Even though “sacrifice” is not actually worded in the story, it is still implying that their tradition is really a sacrifice ritual. Which leads one to say that in the story “The Lottery,” the character Tess Hutchinson who fate chooses as its’ “winner” out

In the story there is only one explanation as to why the lottery is used.  This explanation is given by Old Man Warner, who himself has survived seventy six lotteries.  Old Man Warner states, “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (77).  According to this, the lottery was used as a ritual to promote a plentiful harvest season.  In all societies the success of agriculture is vital to survival.  Farmers “can only wait and hope” that the harvest season will be successful. From this hope, meaningless rituals are created, even when the ritual has no direct relationship (Griffin 44).  The townspeople would sacrifice one of their citizens in hopes that it would in some way or another affect the results of the harvest.

For most individuals, the thought of blaming the victim of a tragic experience for their own pain and suffering, seems preposterous. However, ascribing at least some of the blame to the victim is not uncommon (Niemi & Young, 2014). Victim blaming refers to individuals finding reasons to hold the victim of an incident responsible for the crime that took place (Hayes, Lorenz & Bell, 2013). For victims of sexual assault, who may already be experiencing self-blame and distrust of others, being blamed adds insult to injury (Harber, Podolski, & Williams, 2015). According to Harber et. al, victim blaming can also have long-term effects on victims, such as, increased anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In an effort to increase support and resources for survivors of sexual assault researchers must determine why individuals are prone to blaming the victims rather than the perpetrator of a crime.