Essay on Tradition in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

It is clear that cultural tradition delivers set foundations into a person’s lifetime, giving identity and sense of belonging to a person and their social group. It allows individuals to feel part of something and understand their ancestral values and customs. Several people believe that it is very important to preserve cultural traditions because they feel as if tradition is the main enabler to a shared identity and to a construction of social consistency and unity. People also believe that conservancy of cultural traditions forms exclusive bonds within members of the community, holding people with the same background together to pass on cultural values, and excluding those who aren’t part of the culture. They think that the actual preservation of traditions means not to change the customs and traditions, to not grow from our culture, for example not learning another language because you already know your mother tongue. It is a way to group up and tag everyone in a form of an alliance, and to have better organization and awareness of where everyone comes from.

and how all of the villagers conform to the ritual of a human sacrifice. Growing up with

In the stories “The Lottery written by Shirley Jackson and “The Sisterhood of the Night” by Steven Millhauser both talk about the consequences that someone or the entire village can go through by going against the rules and regulations of a tradition. Observing a tradition is a form of togetherness among every individual and it must be practiced in the right way. Tradition plays an important role in the lives of villagers and it also shines light on how customs and tradition should be practiced according to the way our ancestors have done it in the past. However, it is not one person or a group of people’s idea, it is a laid down rules and laws that can never be changed by anyone regardless of what the situation might hold on to. Most people tend to invent laws that some traditions do not allow, which can lead to conflict and disorderliness in such land. Just like the way at the village square. But not knowing that the majority of the villagers knew the story about the presentation box that is used in conducting the lottery and also have the knowledge of what traditions that was passed to them by their parents, ancestors or Gods of their land. Some people had the belief that tradition is based on “spiritual power” and magical power” to carry out any kind of tradition in the right way. The way the sisterhood believed in magical power and also took a vow of silence to protect their secret and those are the symbols and tradition of their group.

So the next time you have that cup of coffee and read the paper just like your dad and his dad before him. Or if you make apple butter the old fashion way, every year with a recipe from your four times great grandmother, these are traditions. Maybe some people’s tradition is that the child will do the opposite of the parent and be more like the grandparent, and this happens for generations. Have you ever stop to think about these repeated actions as being traditions, for instance if you always brush and floss you teeth after eating. Where did one’s impulse to do this come from, one’s parents maybe, or possibly one’s three times great grandfather was a dentist? Thus he imprinted this on his children, who then imprinted in their children and so on, until you have a tradition of good oral hygiene. I believe that if the masses could learn to accept and respect traditions that are not one’s own, as long as it did not harm others, we would have less conflict in this world. Unfortunately, I do not foresee this happening anytime soon. In Jackson’s The Lottery, the people were civilized and intelligent, but adhered to the traditions of the past, not even knowing why they were stoning someone to death, but doing it just because was tradition. But in Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, there were many life affirming traditions happening, one example being when Guido jumped

Is religion a tradition? Has it been warped so much throughout the centuries that the different opinions have lost the very essence of religion in itself? We use religion as an excuse for many of the things we do in everyday life. America was founded on Christian beliefs, but we’ve held so tight to the old traditions that we can’t see the evil. The founding fathers meant to create a guideline on how our culture should work; they never expected to create a monster.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is one of the greatest well-known short stories in American literature. First published in 1948, the controversial narrative explores the consequences that thoughtless devotion to tradition can have on a small rural town. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson reveals that blindly following tradition could be devastating to every person it involves. Traditions are beliefs, objects, or customs that generations pass down through a given society. In various cultures, traditions are beliefs of thinking and worshiping one’s descendants and legacy.

With 7.3 billion people on earth today, some of us still encompass ourselves with traditions from thousands of years ago. The pursuit of tradition is wired in the heads of the future and carried from one generation to the next; thus breaking family customs is impractical. On the contrary, breaking traditions can create a more desirable future. Tradition does play a role in my life. However, I learned to part from family customs and see the world for myself.

Religious orthodoxy practices their beliefs in a specific way that they believe in. However, I think in the story there is an attack to how powerful traditions can be even in a small group of people. When it no longer makes sense to a small town like this one why should they practice it? Sometimes traditions stop making sense as time goes by. We change and times change and traditions can become meaningless to those who did not live to see why the tradition started. In this case, not all the villagers seem to be fine with the tradition. As a matter of fact, some villagers say a couple of times that other towns have already stopped practicing it. I believe the story claims that if the tradition served for a specific purpose that is no longer worth it or necessary it should be abolished. For religious orthodoxy is different, they know the history behind there traditions and respect those who sacrificed for

In her short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson deals with the consequences of traditional practices, especially those rooted in implicit cultural beliefs. The traditional practice of the lottery represents the unwavering cultural beliefs held by the villagers. The opening remarks shows the extent at which the villagers have become indoctrinated into believing the validity of the practice. The description of the lottery paints a systematized and dreary practice which bears little to no emotional response from the villagers. The matter of fact way in which the villages seem to justify the practice bears immense parallel to the various cultural and traditional beliefs and practices held by each and every culture group both in the past and the present.

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a tradition that occurs every year on June 27th. The tradition takes place in a small village where only about 300 people live. The tradition is supervised by Mr. Summers whose wife is a scold. This tradition works by villagers taking a slip of paper from a black box. You are selected if you paper has a black dot on it. For this lottery a woman was selected named Tessie Hutchinson. If you were selected you face something very horrible. The punishment is getting stoned to death by 300 villagers. Tessie Hutchinson was the unlucky one. She had to face the horrible death by her husband and even her kids.

In this story we see how easily humans oblige to an traditions. Even when Mr.Summer simply suggests replacing the raggedy old black box, villagers become afraid to support this idea. Changing the box wouldn’t do any harm to the citizens, but it’s the idea of change is what haunts them. This idea is push to an extreme in the case of the lottery. At the end of the story, an innocent women is stoned to death for no reason at all! But the people of the village were able to justify their actions because it was “tradition”. Following a tradition makes

Some traditions are passed down for centuries,from one generation to the next,some traditions die out due to the evolution of time and society’s change of mentality that comes with it. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” explores the reasons one society could hold on to a tradition for so long and the effects it can have on that same society as a whole. The villagers of that society seem indifferent to what the tradition actually entails.Additionally,the villagers seem to have forgotten the original purpose of said tradition. They also don’t seem inclined to abolish it anytime soon. Jackson cleverly exposes the dangers of blindly following

The traditions of rituals is strongly examined by author Nicholas B. Dirks in Ritual and Resistance: Subversion as a Social Fact, where he attempts to persuade readers of the drawbacks of ritual practices through an anthropological point of view. Dirks explains to his readers of the fundamentals of rituals as: “brimming with resistance”, “opposed to [everyday]”, along with the centrality of the subject of power (Dirks 1994, 483-503). Continuing to state his supporting arguments through the article, Dirk’s concludes that too much of regular (daily) ritual practices creates a normalization in the ritual itself (Dirks 1994, 483-503). Understanding the perspective of the creation of ordinarity of the practices, one could argue that the repetition of a curtain act of a tradition can become a normality such as Dirks states in his writings; however, if the act of tradition is not conducted daily, yet instead semi-annually/annually, there would not be a normality. Dirks presents his thesis as “[focussing] on everyday forms of resistance, critiquing both anthropological assumptions about ritual and historical reifications of [the] assumptions” (Dirks 1994, 483). Dirks finds the negative components of ritual practices, and continually supports his facts through other scholars opinions as well, however in a separate article of ritual subject matter, Niels Gutschow writes about the respecting aspects of ritual. In Ritual Chariots of Nepal Gutschow explains to the readers the

Traditions and customs is one of the majorly used themes in the book,Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe. In the three parts of the books we see how this theme is used and how much it indicated that people valued and respected their traditions and customs. There were certain measures that would be taken if anyone in the clan failed to follow this traditions and if they broke it, they would receive the appropriate punishment. They had different traditions, for example when Okonkwo accidentally kills one of his clansmen on ( page 124). Obierika and some other clan members set Okonkwo’s house on fire demolished his wall, killed his animals and destroyed is barn.

Tradition; it is the foundation of every culture and civilization. Tradition preserves the faith, ideologies, and endeavors of societies alive so that they can be handed down to the generations after them. Yet, not all practice traditions with pure intentions. Some activities become so habitual, people do not know how to prosper without them. Societies become so accustomed to “tradition” that they will take part in practices without questioning the morality of the situation. Correspondingly, when tradition takes the place of a rational society the outcome can be dangerous.