Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

858 Words2 Pages

Everyone wants to win the lottery… but what if it was the lottery of death. When you win the lottery in the village, you get stoned to death. This is a tradition that is still performed every year in “The Lottery”. The story was written as a metaphor of how Shirley Jackson felt about traditions. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson’s overall tone was frustrated. Traditions are passed down through generations. And in between generations, things are lost or forgotten. Traditions are long established beliefs and/or customs. For example, in “The Lottery” their tradition was to host a lottery every year and whoever won, got stoned to death. As the years passed by, some parts of the tradition were forgotten. On page 7, paragraph 4, Shirley Jackson wrote, …show more content…

The new generation might find or call traditions old fashion. And the only reason why they do it is because of a family member that they highly respect. For example, in the story Old Man Warner is that person who wants to keep the tradition alive and the same. A quote is found on page 4, paragraphs 8 and 9. The author writes, “They do say”, Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the North village they’re talking of giving up the lottery”. Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools.” he said. “Listening to young folks, nothing’s good enough for them.” Old Man Warner is a symbol of the people who want things to be done exactly how they did it growing up. And if people don’t do things exactly the same, then people like Old Man Warner think that people who don’t do the things the same are crazy, insane, unrealistic, infatuated, and weird. The quote helps prove that Shirley’s tone is frustrated because people believe that people with different opinions are crazy and weird. And the reason why Shirley Jackson wrote the story was to express how she felt about traditions. And a tradition like in “The Lottery” should be changed and/or vanished, but people aren’t doing

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