Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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Recommended: Compare tradition and modernity in general

New Year’s, Christmas, Halloween, July 4th and thanksgiving are all examples of modern day traditions. But none of which are anywhere near as violent as the one seen in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. In “The Lottery” the folks of a small anonymous town practice a tradition because they believe it helps their crops grow better, as hinted at in the story by Old Man Warner. The tradition is a lottery in which one unlucky person can pull out a slip of paper with a black dot on it. This person is then encircled by the other townsfolk and stoned to death. The lottery brings up an interesting question about a societies willingness to accept tradition, no matter what boundaries it crosses. One can only ask how the story applies to real life and how far our society will go before questions are asked. …show more content…

If you go outside right now and ask people what they think Halloween is about they will either not know or say something along the lines of “To scare away the evil spirits”. You may be saying that there is no way a tradition like “The Lottery” could exist today. In fact, according to The Huffington Post, in Solapur, India people drop their babies a distance of 50 feet to be caught by men holding a sheet at the bottom. It is a religious practice and is thought to bring the babies and their families’ good health and prosperity for the remainder of their lives. Although no injuries have been reported it is still very dangerous and has no definitive results, just like the stoning tradition in “The

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