Explication Of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Explication of “The Lottery” In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” in the final paragraphs the character Tessie is the winner of the lottery which ironically means she will be getting stoned. The author uses theme of the story to display how traditions are blindly followed for centuries even if they lack any meaning to them at all. She uses several metaphors and allusions throughout the story to convey this message. The significance of the paragraph is even though they do not remember the originally ritual of the lottery yet they do not forget to follow and participate in it every year.
Today when one thinks about the lottery it means in winning a lumpsum of money. “It has a black spot on it, the black Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office” (Jackson 342). In this case of lottery, the tradition is the winner will get stoned by everyone in town. The color of the dot which is black is symbolic of what it is about to happen to

This is shown in the story in the following line “although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remember to use stones” (Jackson 342). They do not remember the purpose of the ritual yet they recollect the part of the ritual to throw stones as if they could not be in the same position as Tessie during next year’s lottery. This is an allusion to how in society people do not even remember the purpose of a tradition yet they follow it because everybody else is doing it. For example, the Mardi Gras holiday is a common to tradition where schools and business close for parades basically. The only true purpose of the Mardi Gras holiday is for pure leisure that contains parading, drinking, and partying. Even though the holiday has no purpose it is a tradition that has been going around for centuries and no one wants to break tradition so it is followed from year to