The Lottery Tradition Essay

The diffusion of responsibility led to a mass bystander apathy in which, “...[the villagers] discarded their own sense of responsibility, deceiving themselves into believing that other[s]...who allowed the misconduct knew better than they did about what was right” (Gandossy). They believed in their hearts that their tradition would lead to the prosperity of their lovelihoods and for that of their families. They would be “benefiting from the current way of doing things” (Gandossy).Also no authoritative figure like Mr. Summers or Mr. Graves spoke out against the lottery. As Robert Gandossy and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld state in their journal, ‘I see nothing, I hear nothing: Culture, Corruption, and Apathy,’ “It demonstrated the willingness of the adults to go to almost any extreme if they believed they were being directed or encouraged by a legitimate authority.” Unfortunately the villagers do not realize that they would be better off without the lottery. They follow a tradition whose parts have been long forgotten, and still carry out the most violent end result in the most barbaric way, death by stones. The people are very self-centered seeing as how they are so quick to turn on friends and family. Like Jay Moore states in ‘Behaviorism’, “A culture thrives when it teaches its members to be concerned about the welfare and ultimate survival of the

    "The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice.  The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens.  On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate.  Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice.  Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about.  Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective

Tradition is a large part of life today, but decades ago it was almost a way of life and if it was not followed there were stiff consequences. The story is misleading by the title because of the normal thought of a lottery is something positive or a giveaway. The story is quite the opposite of the common thought. The main point that Jackson shows in “The Lottery” is that people can be involved with such a violent act and think nothing of it. In the story all the people are happy, “they stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed.”(Jackson 124). The tradition the village seams at first to be a happy scene, but later learn that it is a terrible event that is a

?The people had done it so many times that they only half-listened to the directions?? The villager?s passiveness towards the lottery shows, not only that they don?t want to be there, but that the lottery is just another task they need to mark off of their to-do lists. In actuality, the lottery is a tuned-way of choosing someone to die, but the villagers are so desensitized to it, that they fancy the lottery as nothing more than an errand that they must complete.

The characters of the story blindly follow the traditions of the lottery, allowing murder to be apart of their society. The villagers are not being forced to keep the ritual alive, but they continue it anyway out of personal interest. Old Man Warner is so ecstatic towards the lottery that he believes if the tradition is lost, the people of the village

"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.

This the description before the lottery staring .Through this description, can seemly see that the lottery is not a simple event hold in this village, it must be a big event. And the lottery is also a event that rich people also care about.

Not only does the lottery involve killing other townspeople, but it teaches kids bad habits and makes it seem like a celebration more than a murder. Rather than following their moral standards and trying to end the “tradition”, everyone in the village tries to preserve it. This senseless and immoral tradition creates the town’s foundation and the villagers’ sense of self. The townspeople have been following this tradition forever, so they don’t see it as immoral or evil. Knowing what you did wrong can cause a strong guilt, which could stop some from making a decision.

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a short story about a disturbing social practice in a village. Besides, there were about three hundred citizens in the small village where the setting took place. The introduction of “the lottery” is about an event that takes place every year on 27th in the month of June, where the community members of this tradition organize a lottery. Everyone in the village including small children to adults is expected to participate. Besides, when this story was introduced at the very first in 1948 by Shirley Jackson, many people were upset. This is because this story was so strange to undertake in modern enlightened times.

“The Lottery” represents any action, behavior, or idea that is passed down from one generation to the next that’s accepted and followed without question. Family relationships are important to how the actions of the lottery are carried out, but these relationships mean nothing the moment it’s time to stone the unlucky victim. The lottery has been taking place in the village for as long as anyone can remember. It is a tradition, an annual ritual that no one has thought to question. The villagers are fully loyal to it, despite the fact that many parts of the lottery have changed over the years. Nevertheless, the lottery continues, simply because there has always been a lottery. The result of this tradition is that everyone becomes one to murder on an annual basis. Although family relationships determine almost everything about the lottery, they do not guarantee loyalty or love once the

Throughout the story, the image of “the pile of stones in the corner” (564) remains in the background while the “women greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip” (565) and the villagers prepare for the lottery in the following ways: “There were the lists to make up—of heads of families […] There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers […] a perfunctory, tuneless chant (566). In other words, village life continues normally, and what attention is given to the lottery is given to the formalities of the lottery while the deadliest aspect of the lottery, the stones, is all but ignored, placed in a “corner” and

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a short story based on a fictional village that holds a macabre ritual. Although the regularity was not stated within the tale, the story speaks of a regular gathering of the village folk to conduct some form of lottery. In a disturbing twist of the tale, the winner of the lottery doesn’t get to receive a prize, but instead, suffer the indignity of being killed by getting stoned to death by friends, family, and neighbors. Mrs. Hutchinson is the unfortunate soul, who, despite her pleas and protests has no option but accept her fate. In a similarly titled story, The Lottery by Chris Abani talks about an incident he witnessed when he went to the market with his aunt. In the story, Abani explains how he

Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery is set in a small village who relies deeply on their crops. This story is about a sacrifice that takes place every year in which the heads of households draw for their families in order to see who “wins” and saves the town. The readers grow close to a character named Tessie who decides to speak her mind when it’s too late. In the end, the townsfolk realise that what comes around goes around.

The tradition known as “The Lottery” is an old one that almost every village would do, but by the time that the story is set in most of them had stopped doing the lottery already. Nobody in the village knew why they would do this tradition or what it meant at all. They would just stone people each time someone won for no particular reason except that its “The Lottery.” The black box used in the lottery itself was also not even the original one which shows you that the villagers didn't even know the real meaning to the tradition.

Coulthard describes the attitude of the villagers like this: “the others are willing to risk their own lives for the sheer pleasure of an unpunished annual killing” (226). The fact that they are risking their lives for the lottery ritual pushes the nature of it from simple meanness to sadistic malice. The failure to remember the real reason for the ritual has caused this shift in human nature and motive. The ritual of the lottery should have been discontinued at this point because no real reason exists for it.