Jean Jaures once said that “Tradition does not mean to look after the ash, but to keep the flame alive.” Such was the case with the stories The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, and Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Despite being written in different time periods, the characters in both stories had ardent convictions. Whereas the characters in The Lottery treated tradition as a ritual and and its villagers were confomists, Everyday Use’s Dee treated it as an heirloom and Dee was radical in her views. But they are also similar in the reasons why and how they value tradition. The characters in The Lottery and Everyday Use share similarities in how they value tradition. In both stories, the characters’ value for tradition did not have any practical or …show more content…
She found value in the aesthetic appeal of her heritage. During their meal, Dee mentioned that the chute would make for a good “centerpiece”, but her artistic venture did not end there, as Dee’s final move was to have the quilts to “hang them.” Even Maggie knew, or at least had an inkling, how Dee would use the quilt. Maggie “hung back in the kitchen” then their mother “heard something fall in the kitchen” , and later a “kitchen door slammed” immediately after Dee asked to have the quilts. Yet another instance of Dee shunning practicality was her vexed reaction to the machine stitched quilts. For Dee, because the quilt was pieced together by hand, possibly denoting it to artistry, it was more valuable as a …show more content…
As parts of the ritual had lapsed away, with not one official source as to what the original ritual was, it shows that people did not have strong attachments to the whole tradition. The violence that ensued in the lottery remained ironically untainted despite the test of time. In this sense, technically, it is more of a tradition than the speculated rituals were; and it reflects the choices of the villagers of what they wanted to survive as their