The Lottery

The Lottery

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines tradition as, an inherited,

established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a

religious practice or a social custom) and the handing down of

information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from

one generation to another without written instruction. If we are to go

by the latter definition , we can understand how traditions are easily

lost. Have you ever played the game telephone? You whisper something in

someone's ear and they whisper it in another person^s ear until it

finally returns back to you and normally what is returned isn't even

close to what you originally whispered into the first person's ear In

Shirley Jackson's short story ,"The Lottery" ,the main theme is how

traditions that lose their meaning due to human forgetfulness can cause

dreadful consequences to occur. Jackson uses a lot of symbolism to show

this. The story is set in a small town, ^on the morning of June

27th^(272). It opens with false innocence , using the children building

a rock pile, tricking the reader into a disturbingly unaware state.

The reader almost expects the Lottery to be something wonderful since

the "normal" lottery has the winner getting a prize of a large amount

of money or possesion. Even the story alludes to the innocence ,

explaining how the the town also holds ^square dances, teenage club and

the Halloween program^(273) in the same spot that the lottery is held.

In "the Lottery" we discover that the town-folk use a lottery, to pick

a "winner" to stone to death. The winner is picked using a black box

that has been around for ages, and has even been ^rebuilt with parts

supposedly from the original black box^.(273) Within the box are slips

of paper, enough for the entire town. On one slip of paper is a black

dot for the one lucky winner. Black has always been a symbol for death,

and the color of the box and dot are no exception to this rule. One of

Merriam-Webster^s dictionary definitions of black is ^marked by the

occurance of disaster^ . The black dot on the slip of paper

identifies the lucky winner of the lottery-the person who will get

stoned to death. No-one in town really knows exactly why it is a

tradition although they have some vague ideas. Old Man Warner alludes

that it was once said "lottery in June, corn be heavy soon".(276)

Ironically, even the oldest member of this village doesn^t even

remember the real reason behind the lottery.