The Importance Of Traditions In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Everyone has their own way of solving problems; however, ritual is a form that people doing one thing in the same way. It defines as “the prescribed form of conducting a formal secular ceremony.” However if the meaning of ritual is mistaken, the consequence could be unpredictable." The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson gives us a lecture about a tortuous ritual. The story takes place in a small village with 300 citizens, they gather for a yearly lottery which everyone should participate. The story leads to a horrific ending by people forgetting the concept of ritual.

There are many things that people do every day without questioning why they do them. These are our habits and traditions, and though for the most part they are unimportant they can be a crucial part of our culture and our interactions with each other. Sometimes there are traditions that can cause harm or are morally unacceptable. What should be done in this case? Edmund Burke, a nineteenth century politician and author, argues that it is best to stick with tradition rather than causing dramatic changes in people’s behavior. This is a key component in his argument against the French Revolution in his essay “Reflections on the Revolution in France.” In this essay he argues that the revolution will only lead the

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

It was the day of June 27th, it was a sunny morning. The town was holding a lottery as they do every year. All of the villagers of the village meet at the town square for the lottery. Some of the families that meet at the square were the Hutchinsons, the Dunbars, and the Martins. Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves began the lottery, all of the heads of the household/Husbands came to the center and drew a paper out of the black box. They all showed the people their paper, and Bill Hutchinson's had a black dot on his paper. So, the Hutchinson family went to the center and drew. They all showed the people their paper and Tessie Hutchinson had the black dot on her paper, so that meant that she got stoned to death. “Lottery in June crops be heavy soon,”‘ as they say, this means they sacrifice a person for good crops this is a tradition in this village. The main theme of the story is power of tradition. People didn’t want the tradition, but they did not have the power to stop it.

Shirley Jackson's story, The Lottery is about a group of towns people who meet every year on the 27th of June. On this day a stoning takes place, as it washes away the sins of everyone that lived in the village. However, should the tradition of the stoning be changed when it becomes your time?

The foolishness of blindly following tradition is satirized in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. At first, someone can identify the foolishness of the people when Tessie appears to the gathering late and says,”Clean forgot what day it is.” The thought of killing someone should be heart aching, but since the tradition has been done so many times in the past, it appears like a regular day. Later, when Bill opened his paper and found out he had the black dot, Tessie screamed in protest but Mrs. Delacroix says to be a good sport. The way Mrs. Delacroix says it means that she is trying to get Tessie to participate in the killing of one of her family member. Finally, when Mrs. Delacroix picks up the biggest rock and tells everyone to hurry up so they can get on with the rest of the day. She is willing to kill her friend just because it is the way it had been done for years before shows that people can get sucked into a tradition without even knowing it. That is ho Shirley Jackson depicts humanity in the short story The Lottery.

Shirley Jackson?s insights and observations about society are reflected in her shocking and disturbing short story The Lottery. Jackson reveals two general attitudes in this story: first is the shocking tendency for societies to select a scapegoat and second is the idea that communities are victims of social tradition and rituals.

Throughout history, stories have been made in order for the general public to question society. Each story has a deeper meaning behind it besides the characters and events that take place. In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” Jackson begins her story by describing the location of a small village where “the people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock” (Jackson, 1). From Jackson’s brief description of the village, the audience can come to an understanding that things in this village are ordinary; a modern day example of such a village can be seen as a suburban setting. A suburban setting brings connotations of traditions, no change, and town unity. Those connotations

In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson describes a small town gathering together in the square on June 27, a beautiful day. On this day an old tradition called The Lottery is conducted. This tradition is not well explained but “no one wants to fool around with tradition.” A character by the name of Mr. Summers, brings the black box into the center of the square. Another Character, Mr. Graves, brings a stool for the black box. As the gathering starts children, run around collecting stones in their pockets and making a pile of them in the in the square. The night before the lottery, they make a list of all the families and households in the village. Tessie Hutchinson, who was late, joins her husband and children at the front of the

“The Lottery” is a short story about an event that takes place every year in a small village of New England. When the author speaks of “the lottery” he is referencing the lottery of death; this is when the stoning of a village member must give up his or her life. The villagers gather at a designated area and perform a customary ritual which has been practiced for many years. The Lottery is a

Shirley Jackson wrote many books in her life, but she was well known by people for her story “The Lottery” (Hicks). “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948, in the New Yorker magazine (Schilb). The story sets in the morning of June 27th in a small town. The townspeople gather in the square to conduct their annual tradition, the Lottery. The winner of the lottery will stoned to death by the society. Although there is no main character in the story, the story develops within other important elements. There are some important elements of the story that develop the theme of the story: narrator and its point of view, symbolism, and main conflict. The story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, argues practicing a tradition without understanding the meaning of the practice is meaningless and dangerous.

“The Lottery” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, for those that have not heard of it no it is not about money. The Lottery is a short story about the tradition of stoning. They believed that it would bring them good luck with their crops. “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon’” (Old Man Warner, 1949, 458). The theme of “The Lottery” is that not all cultural traditions are good ones. They dangerously followed them and no family was safe, no one was safe! Some cultures sacrifice animals instead of people.

While customs and rituals are imperative to a civilization’s cultural uniformity, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson exemplifies the negative ramifications of blind adherence to tradition. Gathering together, the village draws slips of paper until one unlucky individual draws the slip with the ominous black dot. The fate of the winner is a brutal stoning by one’s own friends and family. Despite the gruesome nature of the ceremony, the lottery remains as an integral tradition in the villager’s society. Strong adherence to tradition, lack of knowledge in regards to the original purpose of the ceremony, and desensitization to the ritual are the focal points of “The Lottery.”

Growing up a person learns a lot of things along the way. Small things such as learning how to tie a shoe, or bigger things such as learning how to drive a car. One thing that is learned that separates one individual from another is traditions. A lot of times traditions are something that a person follows without putting much thought or effort into it. This gives the opportunity for people to learn and carry out traditions that are not necessarily ethical. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” suggests that the traditions and rituals that one may blindly follow can mislead a person from knowing right and wrong.

“The Lottery” brings to light the horrors of rituals passed down from generation to generation that go unquestioned. Although, it is everyone’s desire to participate in society, the very questioning of such an important ritual would surely lead to the outcasting of citizens in this particular town. Despite having written, “The Lottery” in two hours Shirley Jackson is able to warn readers of the undeniable truth of blindly following orthodoxies that came before us without really understanding their nature or suspending tradition in favor of newer better ones by using symbols like The Stones, The Lottery, and the infamous Black Box.