Tradition And Symbols In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

"Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon", said Old Man Warner. The villagers are aware that the sacrifice is inhumane but no one dares to oppose the ritual from continuing for fear that if they go against society they might be chosen as the lottery winner or disrupt their corn season. The population notices that "Some places have already quit lotteries," Mrs. Adams said. "Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools." As the oldest person in the village, Warner pushes the ideology that choosing a scapegoat each summer is the only means of survival because that is all he has ever known. He also represses any comments about other villages stopping the tradition and insists the younger folk to continue with the scapegoat tradition. The villagers seem to look to Warner for wisdom, or luck, because he has reached an old age without being killed off by the tradition. In a way, he serves as the leader of mob behavior in The Lottery in the sense that no one opposes him when he mentions that those who do not follow the ritual are “fools” and they choose to continue the tradition simply because it has always been that

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 biggest figurehead in the Lottery is Old Man Warner. He is the oldest person in the town and looked at by all. When people start discussing the Lottery, Old Man Warner articulates, "Seventy-seventh year in the lottery"(Jackson 4) Old Man Warner is a seventy-seven-year-old man meaning he has survived an allotted number of lotteries. Also, he says this to ease the wound up townspeople’s minds. Old Man Warner not only symbolizes tradition but also hope. The citizens hope to be as lucky as Old Man Warner and live a long life. The concept that is worshipped by many towns is The Lottery. The Lottery is the concept that someone has to be stoned to death in order for the town to reap an abundance of quality crop. "Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries anymore." (Jackson 3) To many, a day the with Lottery is a dreadful frequently recurring day. It happens so often that in the story we see one character, Tessie, forget what day it is. It's a

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.

To start with, the lottery itself is a huge symbol. Usually, lotteries are associated with winning money. Whereas, the lottery in this short story has a negative outcome of death. Notably, the lottery is a tradition in the town. Since this event has been taking place for many years, they do not even need to explain the lottery to the villagers. Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, makes a point to everyone that there has always been a lottery. The villagers are loyal to this tradition.

Easily regarded as one of America’s most beloved short stories, “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, leaves readers with excitement and perhaps a small sense of doubt. Doubt could be an aspect of the reader’s mind due to the gory fact of the cultural tradition in the small farming town of the story. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” displays the theme of unwavering ritualistic tradition and the use of symbolism throughout the story. This means the village is unable to move past their tradition while symbolism is shown through character’s names such as Old Man Warner and Tessie and through various objects in the story like the stool and the black box.

Over time in “The Lottery”, the true meaning behind the lottery was lost in time. When something means a lot to your family and you continue to do it every year or every day we should know why we are doing it. “It’s not the way it used to be, “Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be. (873)” This quote sums it all

Lotteries are founded in the 19th centuries and it was known widely by its ability to grant one with happiness from the sudden boost in financial state ,however, in the short story “The Lottery” the meaning of the title does not fit with its literal meaning and instead utilize itself ironically. The lottery in the short story could be described as a howling abyss that people, intentionally and unintentionally, push themselves or someone else into. The crowd perceives the aftermath of the lottery as they put themselves into the risk of dying annually, yet they muted rather than clashing about it. Furthermore, Old man Warner whom participated in the Lottery for 77 years was actually protecting the tradition without obtaining the knowledge of

The story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson was about a small agricultural community a long time ago that held lotteries because they believed it improved their crops. They would put a piece of paper for everyone in a box and every family had to pick a slip of paper from it, and the family who got the piece of paper with a mark on it put their papers back into the box and drew again. The member of the family whom received the marked was sacrificed, by being stoned to death by the villagers. In this story it teaches readers not to follow traditions blindly. One reason not to follow traditions blindly is because the tradition could be harmful.

In conclusion the people in this village have a wide rang in opinions. But i think the main reason that they continued to participate was out of fear and tradition, fear that if they broke tradition they could be stoned to death like they did the one unlucky person every year. Scared to break tradition for that is all they know, to them straying from the know and wandering into the unknown could bring consequences no one knows of. Although some detest these actions the traditions they continue because the unknown is scarier than the death that happens once a

The theme of “The Lottery” was never clearly determined until the end of the story where the author reveals the true meaning of the annual event, where someone must always die. (Jackson, 1948)

He believes by retiring the tradition that "They'll be wanting to go back to living in caves" (254). According to Mr. Warner, the lottery is the only thing keeping society stable. As a man of superstition he thinks that a human sacrifice is the only logical answer for insuring that their crops are good, seen in the line "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon" (254). Mr. Warner accepts the way things are because this is the way they have always been. Changing tradition would be disastrous in his eyes. The other main symbol in "The Lottery" is the black box. Unlike old man Warner, the black box represents the absence of tradition. This is because the box itself has not been passed down, rather it has only been the ideas and rituals that were passed through generations. Only pieces of the original box remain. In the beginning of the lottery the villagers used wood chips instead of paper. Over the years the small details of the lottery have been lost and all that remains is the true intention of it. The villagers are blindly following a ritual that has lost most of the tradition, and only holding lotteries simply because there has always been one.

All of the villagers are preoccupied with a black box that is used for drawings of the villagers. Many of the villagers are very uneasy of the annual lottery as the story states they keep their distance from the box and nervously select their drawings. These villagers never question as to why they are participating in a murder but simply follow it as tradition is reason

They choose a person from the black box they use every year, and even though most of the traditions have been lost in the lottery, the one that they remember clear is murder with stones. Towards the end of the story, Mrs. Hutchinson is killed because she is the winner of the lottery. Children, adults, and everyone picks up stones prepared to kill her without any erudition of why they are doing it and the purpose for them doing it. Since they are using the lottery to kill people, the quote that can give a possible reason for the killing tradition in the story says, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”, which is what Old Man Warner said was an “old” saying. Since it was used back then as people get killed in the Lottery, then the ancestors must have created the lottery as a way to help crops grow in the winter months.

Old Man Warner is the epitome of the lottery and its tradition. He is the oldest man in town, having participated in seventy-seven lotteries total. As a steadfast advocate for keeping things exactly how they stand and someone who is threatened by the idea of change, he distinguishes all the towns and the young people who have stopped pursuing the lottery as a “pack of crazy fools” (Jackson, 27). He is trapped within the past traditions, even if they should not sustain. Being the antagonist, Old Man Warner does not veer away from the tradition, even though many others do not agree with it.