We all want to know what was going through Shirley Jackson head when she wrote the story “The Lottery,” or what message she wanted to get across to the reader.Although “The Lottery” seems like it’s just some random lady ranting about killing people for corn, it’s actually about how just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t make it the right thing to do, because they have been doing the lottery for years, and when a few people in the group do something the rest of them follow, also Old Man Warner convinces the others to continue the lottery. In the first place, the lottery has been going on for years. On the first page paragraph five “The Lottery” states “The original paraphernalia had been lost long ago.” This shows that the village had been doing the lottery for so long that they don’t even have the original things they used many years ago. Another quote from the same paragraph states “The black box now resting on the stool …show more content…
On page four paragraph seventeen Old Man Warner states “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery. Seventy-seventh year.” This shows that “The Lottery” has been going on for at least seventy-seven years because Old Man Warner said that is how many times he has been in the lottery, and “The Lottery” is a yearly ritual. The article says “Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded.” They have been doing the lottery for so long