“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, is a short story expressed through the theme of apathy, when the community feels no emotion for anyone, that a ritual is more important than a human being, mob mentality, and hypocrisy which is prevalent within the townspeople. It may help learning more about Shirley Jackson to better understand why she wrote such a horrific story like, “The Lottery.” Shirley Jackson moved into a small town, Bennington, Vermont, where she wasn’t accepted within her town which shows she was thinking how cruel people can be. Not being accepted is not the same as being stoned or killed, but it has the capacity for cruelty. Through this, Shirley Jackson is suggesting that we need to examine ourselves and our actions carefully and live our lives consciously instead of
Shirley Jackson uses “The Lottery” to make a point about traditions, rules, and human behavior. To begin, traditions are something that relapse over time. Traditions take time to develop, but once developed people don’t happen to like it to change. In “The Lottery” one of the traditions is preparing the black box for the lottery to take place. In paragraph 5 on page 48 it talks about how there was a story about the present black box that was made by the black box before.
Tradition is something everyone in the world has gotten to experience. These types of traditions may be good and some may be bad. The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson shows us the dangers of blindly following tradition and how Black Friday and The Short Story both set an example of blindly following tradition. Blindly following traditions just like in The Lottery in many ways is when you follow the steps and rules that were set in place, it mainly focuses on doing what others do because of the tradition regardless if it's bad. In the short story The Lottery, Shirley Jackson gives us a vivid descriptive details about the terrifying ordeal.
The box had been splintered badly along the side because of the carelessness of the villagers over the years. The chips of wood that used to be used were now paper slips. “So much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded…”(104). As time passed by, the lottery was less of an importance to the village, therefore the original tradition slowly faded away. Even after all of the changes made in the tradition, the lottery was consequently as powerful as it always had been.
The short story, "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson depicts a small town on a traditional day called the lottery. Although the lottery might've gotten it's beginning for a certain purpose, such as religion, the town has since forgotten why their doing it, but they still do it anyways. In the story, Tessie Hutchinson is picked in the annual lottery. Although everybody else has no issue with killing Tessie, Tessie keeps yelling out and exclaiming, "It isn't fair, it isn't right." (Jackson 29).
The box is used in the lottery to draw slips of paper (Jackson 313). If their paper has a dot on it, the drawer is to be stoned to death (Jackson 319). In Danielle Schaub’s " Shirley Jackson's Use of Symbols in 'The Lottery’” , She suggests that the color black on the box represents death, mourning, and punishment (par.7).
When a person experiences a one thing enough time, eventually, they will become desensitize to it. People can become used to inhumane things such as death and murder if it is entrenched sufficiently into their lives. For instance, in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the tradition of a community brutally murders a member of their town due to an insensible tradition, when the victims challenge the morality of the ritual, the community shows no remorse including her victim husband, dehumanizing the
Shirley Jackson: The Lottery When you think of a tradition what comes to mind? Perhaps it is linked with your family’s core values, beliefs, or has significant meaning. Specifically, traditions are beliefs passed down from generations, they are not declared righteous or sinful, why they were born or still exist. Why do people follow traditions so mindlessly without knowing the purpose of it?
Shirley Jackson says "the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers but the black box on it". This is disturbing detail that makes the reader wonder what is in the mysterious box .This detail ultimately leads to the terrifying ending. The people choosing from the box is another disturbing fact. Jackson writes “Mr. Summers declared the box to be open" and adresses "There had been a ritual
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is about a village who participates in a drawing every year. The family that is drawn then has to come forth and draw one more time, and whoever draws the sheet of paper with a black dot on it, is to be stoned to death. The townspeople do not think negatively of this event; nor do they treat it any different than any other type of social gathering. The ritual has went on for over seventy seven years because the towns people believe it benefits the crops. The towns people know very little about the origin of the ritual, but they insist on keeping it alive.
Why does an individual follow a blind tradition in hopes of achieving “sameness” with the public eye or society? One is unconsciously trained to follow mindless tradition without knowing what it’s deeper meaning is. “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, represents a long lost sacrifice ritual, now morphed into a blind tradition that people follow. A fictional village struggles with this concept, holding a voluntary “lottery” every year, where the “winner” is stoned to death. The villagers hold the lottery because they believe that the crops will be bountiful in the event that they do as such.
As for the box, it is vividly described, hinting around the
In her story "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson implies the negative consequences of blindly following tradition through the acceptance, by the villagers, of the tradition of the lottery. Jackson suggests that the people of the village are afraid to give up the little tradition they have, even if it is not good. Every year after the lottery, the conductor of the lottery, Mr. Summers suggests that they should build a new box but, “No one [likes] to upset even as much tradition as [is] represented by the box.” (Jackson, 1). The black box symbolizes ritual and tradition.
Jackson gives an impression that the shabby, black box is a personal and constant reminder to the people so that they must remain faithful to the tradition of their forefathers and never ponder on the notion that those customs might be wrong or immoral. In addition, the villagers’ behavior towards the box embodies their assessment on the entire system of the lottery. They seem to be frightened by the lottery and the box, but they are even more petrified to alter or doubt one or the other. Pressures, traditions and longstanding beliefs may potentially guide that society to an extensive ignorance and sanctioned malevolence that is directly strengthened by
They do not want to follow the other towns that had given up the lottery. The townspeople are apprehensive of transition because of the unknown factors. One of the examples in the story that shows their lack of willingness to change their customs is the battered black box they use for the lottery. It has been stained and the original color of the wood is shown on the side. Every year, Mr. Summers, who manages the lottery suggests to the villagers to get a new box.
