In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson describes the annual tradition of a small town. The tradition is extremely primeval: each family randomly selects a slip of paper from a box and if there is a black dot on the slip of paper, someone in that family will selected to be stoned. Jackson writes about the tradition in order to point out the willingness of society to blindly follow traditions and the ignorance that follows. Throughout the story, Jackson goes through all of the preparations for the selection process. The townspeople all seem nervous, but no one says anything. As soon as it is discovered that the Hutchinson family has the paper with the dot, all of that anxiety goes away (for everyone but the Hutchinson family). Still, every year this stressful process repeats itself and no one questions …show more content…
When the idea of eliminating the lottery was discussed, it says, “’Pack of crazy fools,’ [Old Man Warner] said. ‘Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them… There’s always been a lottery,” (Jackson). This statement shows the willingness of society to follow the tradition; Old Man Warner specifically uses the fact that the tradition is a tradition to defend its sanctity. There is really no other reason to keep the tradition other than the fact that it has been occurring for so long. This comment shows the ignorance in society; the townspeople do not think about what they are doing or why they are doing it, but just do it. Though this story was a rather extreme example, it perfectly illustrates how society just does as the past did, as seen through the fact that the person in charge of the lottery refused to replace the broken box because of the box’s history. Jackson is trying to point out society’s tendency to follow long-standing traditions without fully understanding the reason behind the traditions. Overall, the purpose of this story was to point out society’s tendency to blindly follow traditions without every questioning the purpose of the