The Illusion of Tradition in Jackson's The Lottery

The Illusion of Tradition

There is a Lottery going on today and we all hold a ticket. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson is asking people to stop for a moment and take a look at the traditions around them. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to show that traditions today are sometimes as misguided as the tradition of the lottery in that small town in Somewhere, USA.

Evil can be evoked in the most kind-hearted person if tradition deems it ok. Though the years there have been many wars in which many men have fought, and killed. If not put in a war torn environment the men in those wars would never have killed anyone. School children continually bully each other, sometimes to the point of serious injury. Otherwise kind, loving children, gain strength through numbers and, as a group encourage each other, making it ok to torment another. Usually a much weaker and shy child is on the receiving end of this torment. The children in “The Lottery” symbolize how humans have a duel nature that allows usually friendly people to become violent when put in the right situation with the right conditions. “On a beautiful day in June the young children choose there stones. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix-- the villagers pronounced this name "Dellacroy"--eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.”(255) People in this small town are the same as in any small town, but when empowered with numbers and a tradition that deem it ok, evil shows it’s ugly face.

Today tradition is a strong part of out lives. We do not have any traditions that are as extreme as the lottery, however “The Lottery” symbolizes that relevance can be lost over time. Take the Bible for example, it has been written and rewritten several times over thousands of years, translated from one language to another and then to another. Even over the relatively short period of time in “The Lottery” many thing had been lost from there tradition. “At one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the ...

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...obody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.'” (258) “There's always been a lottery," he added petulantly.” (258) Tradition is so strongly rooted that it is tied to the fertility of the land and how well a year’s crop will be.

Each and every day we face life with the chance that we may not make it through the day. The black box in “The Lottery” symbolizes the fact that we are mortal beings and just as easy as not we may die any given day. “Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.” (259) Automobile accidents, cancer, heart attacks, any number of things could happen to anyone any time as easy as the slips of paper fell into the box. The slips falling into the box and the wind blowing the others away symbolizes how random life really is with respect to death. Live your life full and pray the wind blows for you.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. ?The Lottery.? Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Diana Gioia. 6thed. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.