Essay On The Lottery Tradition

center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said” (Jackson 863). Even simply being a women would not save you from being stoned to death, the villagers did not care. All they knew was they had to stone her because it was an annual tradition.
Another question that pops up is why would such a horrific action, be considered a tradition? “Why this unyielding support for these traditions? The answer to this question may lie in the darkest part of the human psyche” (Schneidermon 882). Well for one the reasons why traditions exist are because they bring people together. Also in a sense you do not have to think about what to do every year because it is already set in stone what is already going to occur. The main reasons why the villagers keep this horrible tradition alive is because they are promised a great harvest of corn if they do so. “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.

“Mr. Summers hints at other negative consequences of the lottery when he says,” ‘guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work,’ The lottery ritual contributes nothing to the village, it only serves as a distraction from everyday village life”(Schneiderman 881). Mr. Summers apparently is one of the villagers that realize the negative consequences of the lottery and it should be stopped. “As I mention before, the detrimental effects of a tradition are easier to see when we are not part of that tradition ourselves. Thus, it is easy for us to condemn the lottery and its ritualistic murder of innocent victims” (Crawford 879). “The Lottery” is a perfect illustration of society values and how people feel as though they should always get what they want no matter who suffers in the