The Routines of Life In most lotteries winning is the goal, but that is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery.” It is a bright sunny day, and people are gathering for an important annual event. Children are running around collecting stones, and the townsfolk are having casual conversations with one another. The ritual begins, and every family draws a piece of paper out of an old black box. Whichever family draws the black dotted paper gets the honor of drawing again. The Hutchinson family gets the lucky piece of paper. Each individual of the family picks again to find out the winner. Mrs. Hutchinson draws the black dotted paper, and as she is complaining about how it is not fair, she gets stoned to death by her own community, …show more content…
The sun was shining, flowers were in bloom, and the children were running around going about their normal day. Woman and men were having everyday conversation with each other as if it was just another normal day in the village. They knew that someone would soon become the winner of the lottery and get stoned to death, but that did not bother them because they knew it had to be done since it is tradition. It was another regular day for them except they would stop for a couple of hours to stone someone to death. “...the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner” (133). They make the lottery seem like such a normal event. They even make the comment of how they make it quick so that the town people can get on with the rest of their day. The setting of the village is presented as a normal civilized town, which contributes to why the townsfolk also think of the lottery as normal. The setting also covers up the dangers of the lottery, just like traditions can cover up dangers of …show more content…
They used the old beat up box every year for their ceremony, and even though it was in major need of replacing, no one took the time to get a new one. Jackson shows just how worn out the box was, “Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year; by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained” (134). Jackson describes the box as faded and stained and says it becomes shabbier each year. This could be said about the lottery as well, as every year passes the lottery gets more and more outdated. It may be part of their tradition, but it certainly needed to get replaced, but the villagers are stuck on following their routine that they did not want to change anything. Jackson does have one character mention getting a new box, but the villagers opposed. “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (134). Just like the lottery itself, it needed to be replaced, but no one took time to change because that is what they have always done. When the villagers were talking about how the neighboring towns were thinking of getting rid of the lottery, Old Man