In 1350, there were 19,000 Jews residing in Frankfurt, Germany; in 1400, there were less than 10. The reason for this massive drop: a deadly disease spread by rats, caused by fleas, was ravaging the majority of Europe’s population. However, this plague, known as the black death, was not directly responsible for the decline in the Jewish population, despite the fact that, at this time, 40% of Europe was dead or dying. The Jews were not killed by rats. They were killed by humans. As a result of their religion, the Jews bathed regularly, leaving them with far less fleas than the Christians, who made up the majority of Europe’s people. Making the fallacy of false causation, the Christians believed that the Jews were the case of the plague, since they were dying less frequently from its ramification. This persecution, like most persecution, was senseless and based on nothing substantial. Shirley Jackson emphasizes this absurdity in the short story, “The Lottery,” through the irrational and ludicrous oppression of Tessie Hutchinson, the protagonist. The author created a world in which, every year, all of the villagers take part in the lottery, where they draw a slip of paper, one of which has a black dot on it. The villager, in this case Tessie Hutchinson, who selects that paper is, in an astonishing peripeteia, stoned. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson conveys the theme that there is no basis …show more content…
Whoever selects the black dot is immediately ostracized and then stoned. This is seen in the passage, “It had a black spot on it… there were stones on the ground… Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” There is absolutely no substantial, logical reason for the stoning or the maltreatment in general, thus proving Jackson’s point on how little a community requires to turn on eachother. The stoning in “The Lottery” is meaningless, as is the persecution in the authentic