An Inside of the Past Ritual Event Too often when we follow our traditional practices, but we never ask one simple question that why we are doing them. In my experience, I am accustomed to my traditions because of my cultural and ethnic backgrounds. That is how I am raised and taught by my parents from day one. As I grow older, I am still practicing them because they are part of me. For example, the Vietnamese tradition is that the children have to go see their parents and grandparents on the first day of Lunar New Year. I have been following this traditional practice for many years to show my respect to the adults, but I wonder why I have to do this on that specific day. This kind of my traditional practice is not harmful. However, tradition and social norm have a power to make people follow even though it can be harmful to individuals or to society. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson criticizes the villagers who go through the lottery blindly. In this case, the lottery price is not about a car or money, but it’s a death. Like those villagers, following the social conformity and blind adherence to the traditions could have negative implications for us and our society. “The Lottery” is a fictional short story, and the setting is about the ritual sacrifice takes place in a small village in New …show more content…
Shields has argued that “fiction can give us more insight into value issues than other sources can. Although fiction is made up of imaginary elements, it is true to reality and human experience” (Shields). He then argued that capital punishment is not civilized in modern society where the use of “scapegoating, gender, class structure, sanctioned violence, arbitrary condemnation, and ritual cleansing” exists. Life on death row is like the lottery since it did not serve its purpose as it was intended to do. John J. Macionis, who is a Prentice Hall distinguished scholar, had some harsh words against the capital