Title “Tradition is the illusion of permanence.” by Woody Allen. The purpose of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is blindly following tradition. People have always done the lottery, but they don’t remember anything about the lottery. And their perspective changed about the lottery. The lottery shows that to know what you are doing. One piece of evidence is that the people in the village has always doing the lottery. Old Man Warner said, “‘There’s always been a lottery,’” (Jackson, 22). The quote shows that they have always been doing the lottery. That means that the only reason they are doing the lottery is because they always have been doing it. This connects back to the idea of blindly following tradition because they are doing it