The box represents the townspeople’s fate and the box being black in color articulates their impending death. The towns people continue to follow the tradition of participating in a lottery that ends with the death of one person from the town every year. The box is all beat up and described as “shabby” which shows the stuff the lottery has been lost to. The splintering of the wood and chipping of the paint was a way to represent the traditions of the town and its downfall. Replacing the old wood chips with slips of paper symbolizes the progression for change. The main purpose was to show how the attitude of the crowd affected the attitude of an individual. For example, Tessie, the winner of the lottery, at the beginning of the story seems to be calm and is not against the event. Once she catches wind that she is going to die she casts doubt on the fairness of the drawing. Another prominent theme of the story is hypocrisy because not many people completely realize what they are participating in until it is too late. Those who draw the paper with the dot open their eyes and understand what is happening. …show more content…
This story is told in the omniscient point of view whereas only certain histories of selected characters were told, and the thoughts of the characters were omitted from the story. The point of view is used to conceal what is going to happen next. If the author would have put the thoughts of the character in the story, then the ending would have been given away because the thought and possibility of drawing the black dot would be all the people would be thinking about. Jackson uses chance to initiate the story and to send the message that in life scapegoats for anything are chosen