The Significance Of Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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It can be outrageous how people blindly follow tradition without knowing the history behind it or the ritual that started it all? In Shirley Jackson's, “The Lottery” the characters are living in a very small village that hosts the lottery. The lottery started off as a ritual that the founders of the village believed; When the lottery is over, the crops would grow. This ritual soon became a tradition. The time has come and Mr. Summers and the other characters that live in the village are ready for the lottery. Today, they just do the lottery because they believe they have to-- they do not really know the meaning behind it. A long, long time ago when the first people settled in a very cute, very small village. They had many ceremonial rituals, one of them was the lottery. In the lottery if anyone gets the black wooden chip then they win. Winning is great and all but when someone wins they get stoned to death.“Lottery in june, corn be heavy soon.” (pg. 52, line 260),Which means that the lottery is one june 27 every year. So that means that a person dies every year on june 27. Which also means that the corn, and crops will start to grow faster every june 27th. The people who founded the little village that the lottery is held …show more content…

Just like in this peculiar village people today are celebrating Easter, Epiphany, Passover, and so many other holidays like that. People do not necessarily know the story or the ritual that started it all. Imagine some people just moving Christmas to December 5th, changing Hanukkah to only 6 nights, or even not having Halloween at all! Just because it fit into people's schedule better. Well, this happened to the lottery that takes place in the village. People Changed the chips of wood to paper slips, and the time the lottery goes on. Shirley Jackson's “the lottery” is all about how a ritual turns into a tradition that today's generation blindly

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