The Purpose Of Tradition In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

In the short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson every year on June 27th the village of 300 people gather in the town square and attend the lottery. The lottery in their town isn't like the lottery we have today because if a person gets the black spot on their paper they will get stoned to death. The purpose of the lottery is that it has been a tradition for many years and they want to keep the tradition going.

First of all, in the short story the oldest man in town who is 80 years old and supports the lottery the most is Old Man Warner. He mention that, “There’s always been a lottery” (p.22, lines 262-263). Also, to pick the person who “wins” the the black box is as old as the village and Mr. Summers who's in charge of the lottery wants to make a new one but the town disagrees because, “no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (p.16, lines 75-78). These two quotes prove that they keep following the tradition to not disrupt the many years of the lottery that have been going one.

Adams are both waiting for the lottery to start when Mr. Adams states, “ ‘They do say,’ Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, ‘that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.’ Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools’ ” (p.22, lines 251-255). The significance of this chat is to prove that Old Man Warner disagrees with all of the other villages that the lottery needs to