Essay on The Lottery

“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 The story reveals how traditions can become outdated and ineffective.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

Almost every person in the world holds a set of traditions which have been established and practiced for a long period of time. However, some traditions often cause us to not see the rationality despite of the destructive nature it may have. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, a sacrifice of one’s life becomes the “jackpot” of an annual event held in a small town. This society’s traditions have caused the people to do away with their rational thoughts and the values of their lives as they have become so stuck in their own cultural beliefs.

Tradition; it is the back bone of every culture and civilization. It is what keeps the beliefs, philosophies, and activities of societies alive, to be passed down from generation to generation. However not all traditions are practiced with pure intentions.  Some activities become so routine, people don’t know a life outside of them. Societies become so accustomed to “tradition” that they will participate in pastimes without  questioning the ethics or morals of the situation. Ultimately when tradition takes the place of a rationalizing mind the outcome can be incredibly dangerous. The role of tradition is an underlying theme in the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, forcing readers to ask themselves “At what point do

Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is a short story about the annual gathering of the villagers to conduct an ancient ritual. The ritual ends in the stoning of one of the residents of this small village. This murder functions under the guise of a sacrament that, at one time, served the purpose of ensuring a bountiful harvest. This original meaning, however, is lost over the years and generations of villagers. The loss of meaning has changed the nature and overall purpose of the lottery. This ritual is no longer a humble sacrifice that serves the purpose of securing the harvest but instead is a ceremony of violence and murder only existing for the pleasure found in this violence.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a story littered with warnings and subtext about the dangers a submissive society can pose. While the opening is deceptively cheery and light Jackson uses an array of symbols and ominous syntax to help create the apprehensive and grim tone the story ends with. Her portrayal of the town folk as blindly following tradition represents the world during World War II when people’s failure to not mindlessly accept and heed authority lead to disastrous consequences. . Shirley Jackson uses a large array of techniques to help convey the idea that recklessly following and accepting traditions and orders can lead to disastrous consequences.

The first part of the traditional ritual that is changed is the chips of wood. "Chips of wood, Mr. Summer's had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny..." The result of this argument was replacing the chips of wood with little pieces of paper since the population of the village had increased. This reveals how the growth of the community can change people's perspective on how they are used to doing this tradition. It's perceived as though there is no regard to how the ancestors of this village put on the lottery. No one shows deep family values to keep the tradition rich and pure of its originating roots. The chips of wood are taken from a tradition to basically do away with extra time and work.

“Even thought the black box lost its meaning they still remembered to use stones”(Griffin8). The villagers remembered the negative and not the positive in the ritual. The villagers don't think about others just themselves. Griffins statements can be used to state my claim about cruelty behavior. Their main arguments can be used in my essay towards authority and violence. Griffins article talks about how the villagers are being brought down by Old Man Warner and continues the tradition and converting it to violence. Instead of standing up to Warner and protesting that is not right to treat human beings as a form of assumption in sacrifice in order for crop growth to

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.

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

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

In both stories, the innocent characters were fighting death at the hands of someone who found the idea of killing another human being to be a game. In “The Lottery” the game of death consumed an innocent life solely because a few individuals founded a tradition; and in “The Most Dangerous Game” the game of death consumed an innocent life solely because one person thought it was merely entertaining. Both authors portrayed the antagonist as friendly, warm and welcoming. In the Lottery, the antagonists were the families whom participated in the drawing of a name that lead to the stoning of another family member (which may or may not be their own family member). In “The Most Dangerous Game” the antagonist was a well-off general who opened his luxurious home to guests who have gone astray from their original destination. Death is the main theme of both short stories and both authors portrayed this dark and dreary idea as a game the characters are playing.

One can understand how traditions are easily lost through the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another. Traditions that lose their meaning due to human forgetfulness can cause dreadful consequences to occur. Although "the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original box, they still remembered to use stones" to kill the forgetful woman.

The theme in this short story is that blindly following tradition can be very dangerous. This is shown to the reader through the bizarre ritual of murdering innocent people just because tradition says so. The town has become so immersed in this tradition that they fail to see the damage it is creating in their

people who blindly follow tradition do so without ever considering the purpose behind the tradition, a tradition that appears to be as vital to the villagers because they believe that this tradition helps their crops to grow. Its apparent the lack of history which makes tradition so powerful, and the people of the village can't even imagine rebelling against it. Also, the story begins by making the reader think the lottery has some prizes and that’s why the beginning of story was tricky thorough the story.” The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’ clock; in some towns, there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th”.