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Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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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. Shirley Jackson uses the objective point of view to convey how people follow traditions without reasoning or questioning. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" starts out by explaining the history behind the drawing box. It explains how it is …show more content…

Some discuss how beneficial the lottery is, and some discuss how it is senseless. While speaking with Mr. Warner, Mr. Adams says, " They do say that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."(Jackson 256) The audience finds out that some villages have came to terms and realized that continuing the lottery would be senseless. Yet, most people were looked down upon for not wanting to continue the tradition. When the family of Tessie Hutchinson is drawn from the box, she yells, " You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair."( Jackson 256) When Tessie's family is drawn, her reaction was unexpected by the reader. The way Jackson uses the objective point of view up until this very moment sways the reader into thinking that the lottery is a positive tradition, but Tessie's reaction reveals that something bad is about to happen. The reader is not able to infer specifically what is going happen, but Jackson does disclose through the objective point of view how most everyone

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