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Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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Why do we celebrate Christmas? Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July? Why do we celebrate certain days? There are multiple answers to this question. But the true question is...why do we celebrate these certain days every year? Tradition. A word that holds so much meaning and power. But what if that power is so strong that people follow tradition blindly? In Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” that is what exactly happened. The people within “The Lottery” have such a strong loyalty to this tradition that they feel no guilt about random persecution, tradition rules over morality, and believe that tradition is tradition, no matter what. In the short story novel “The Lottery”, people within a village participate in a lottery that happens …show more content…

The whole purpose of the lottery was never truly stated but the why this village continues the lottery is because tradition is tradition. That is why Mr. Summers always runs the lottery, the lottery is always drawn from the same black box, the lottery always takes place on June 27th, and the winner is stoned. No matter how cruel this tradition is, as Old Man Warner (a villager) says, “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 375). Just like how there's always been a mingi in Ethiopian culture. According to the article, “Is the tide turning against the killing of ‘cursed’ infants in Ethiopia” the author, Matthew D. LaPlante, states that a mingi is “cursed, according to their [the ethiopians] ancient superstitions” (2). The way the Ethiopians determine if a child is cursed is if the child is born of physical deformities, the birth is illegitimate, and other superstitions. If a mingi is born, the way to fix the mingi is to kill it, why? Because it is tradition to kill a mingi in Ethiopian culture. Just like in “The Lottery”, why was Mrs. Hutchinson stoned? Because tradition is tradition now matter what the circumstances

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615 Words | 3 Pages

Most people know the lottery as a contest to win money. But in the short story, “The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson, the lottery is not a simple game competing for money. In this small village’s version of the lottery, everyone must draw out of a box, and if their family is chosen then the whole family must redraw and the death of a member is decided. After the fate is decided, the rest of the village throws stones at him or her until he or she dies. The villages reasoning of this process is they believe it guarantees a plentiful crop season.

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226 Words | 1 Pages

“The Lottery”, a short story written by Shirley Jackson, presents the reader with the negative consequences of following tradition. The story is set in a small town where a ritual called the lottery is taken place in which the “winner” gets killed by the other participants. Since the lottery is part of the town’s traditions, nobody wishes to get rid of it or make any changes to it regardless of its cruelty. For example, the box used for the lottery is in a very bad state and would need to be replaced. However, nobody has taken any further action to find a new box because the old one has been used for a long time and is said to be made of the remains of the one previous to it.

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1883 Words | 8 Pages

Through the characters it is shown how they are so blinded by tradition that even though there is no logic behind the ritual they still continue the violent acts. This is demonstrated by only one person in the village knows the original meaning behind the happening of the lottery. The justifications of the characters about why the lottery takes place shows how there is no reason why it should still occur. One character this is demonstrated through is Old Man Warner. In the story Old Man Warner declares, “ ‘There’s always been a lottery’…”(Jackson, 434).

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593 Words | 3 Pages

Imagine a society where killing somebody for the sake of a tradition is acceptable. In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson describes an ordinary village with normal people, but as the story progress the details of their yearly practice known as “the lottery” unravels to be more disturbing. The author subverts the readers’ expiations by persuading the reader into assuming “the lottery” is a ordinary tradition until unusual details and the behavior of the characters come into place. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

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1197 Words | 5 Pages

The world is a scary place, and it is my job is to help make this world more peaceful. My name is Leonardo Smith, and I work as a detective in New York City. I decided to become a detective, so I could rack up some money to take care of my sister as my family tries to cure her PTSD. Some people may believe that becoming a police officer would have been a smarter decision, but I prefer working alone. I used to solve serious murder mysteries, but now I just am finding missing pets.

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875 Words | 4 Pages

In the story there are a lot of clues that say that the lottery is about tradition, like the lottery itself. The lottery is a tradition that “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born” Paragraph 5: Line 1. According to another statement by Old Man Warner “Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Paragraph 14: Line 17. The two quotes show that the tradition of the lottery in the town outlives the oldest member of the town.

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355 Words | 2 Pages

Additionally, they feel as though they won't be tormented with some kind of disaster. The last motivation behind why the villagers hold the lottery is on the grounds that it is something they have been carrying out for so long, townspeople have recently made it a meaningless practice. The practice of the lottery is still unknown, but there are many pieces of evidence that

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785 Words | 4 Pages

‘The Lottery’ is a story about tradition and sacrifice. However, even though the NY times article is about sacrifice, they are for different things. Such as money vs. good luck. ‘The Lottery’ talks about this small, peaceful village that have no problems and has mainly positive dialogue. But this village has this really weird tradition.

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869 Words | 4 Pages

In the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, an annual drawing happens on June 27th. The story “The Lottery” is about a group of villagers who partake in the annual drawing, and at the end the person who essentially “wins” the lottery is stoned to death. The purpose of the lottery is that it is used as an indicator that the harvest is coming. The purpose is also that it is a tradition passed down from their ancestors as a good luck ritual before harvest to get good crops that year. The villagers still carry this tradition because they are afraid of the outcome if they were to break it.

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592 Words | 3 Pages

The gruesome tale of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” showcased a dystopian society heavily dependent upon tradition. Throughout the short story, I saw instances where Jackson juxtaposed peace and violence. In fact, Jackson opened the short story with picturesque scenes of flowers, making the readers completely unaware of the violence that followed. When the narrator began by saying “the morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (216) the setting appeared peaceful and happy. At this point the readers were left in the dark, which was why the death of Tessie Hutchinson was a huge shock at the end.

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501 Words | 3 Pages

The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who

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1898 Words | 8 Pages

The short story, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. The Lottery is about people from a small town that gather together in the square in June. In this village, there are only 300 people. Therefore, unlike most towns, the lottery only takes a few hours. The children in the town collect stones, rocks, and small pebbles and put them in a pile in the corner of the square.

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472 Words | 2 Pages

Evaluation of Purpose Statement Purpose statement describes the study research design, theory to be tested, intent of the study, variables involved, participants and the context of the problem (Burkholder, Cox & Crawford, 2016). The purpose of the journal reviewed was to investigate whether iPads allow children to write and draw with ease without a need for a pen and paper for a drawing activity in school. It was unclear that the purpose stated used signaling words but could be derived from the abstract. Additionally, although the title stated that the study is a quantitative comparison, the quantitative research design was not explicitly highlighted in the purpose statement.

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649 Words | 3 Pages

Is it because it is the way it has always been done? In “The Lottery,” a short story, by Shirley Jackson , she uses literary elements such as setting, irony, and symbolism to portray the theme of tradition. The author, in this instance, conveys the existence of a tradition, that is not defined, could cause you to deliberately lose your life.

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650 Words | 3 Pages

The characters’ behaviors don’t exactly scream “I love the lottery!” The most logical reason for doing something that makes them unhappy is they are doing it as a tradition. But why not break the tradition? After digging a little deeper, it is easy to see that the lottery has been going on for a long time: “There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here (p. 16, lines 78-82).” Since the original black box was made when the village first settled, the lottery is an ancient tradition that is generations old.

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