Old Man Warner and the Dreaded Lottery Tradition

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

In the story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, it takes place in a small town with about 300 people. Each year, an event known as “The Lottery” takes place. In the middle of the Lottery, was a man they called old man warner. Old Man Warner was the oldest man in town. He had participated many times, and was never chosen in the Lottery. Living from the start of this event, he was the one who knew all the traditions and was the one who pushed the town to continue with them. They ran into the town square and began to fill their pockets with rocks. The person chosen from the lottery would be beat to death with the stones. For most towns it could take two days, but since the town was peculiarly small, it only took about two hours. The lottery was previously “just for crops”, but after many years it became a tradition that wasn’t right. First off, no one was ever happy or excited about the event, mostly people were scared. It states, “They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously”(p. 21 line 216). Clearly, The way that they looked at one another expressed that they were scared. All they would do was stare at each other being afraid to speak up. They knew Old Man Warner wouldn’t be happy

Hutchinson said as quietly as she could, ‘I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him enough time to choose. Everybody saw that’, said Tessie” (p. 25, line 340). The author illustrates that Mrs. Huchingson tried to speak as quietly as she could because she was afraid that no one would agree with her. No one was confident enough to speak up for the whole town, except for Tessie. Tessie wasn’t scared of Old Man Warner. She knew what they were doing wasn’t right. Even though old man warner knew it was better for the town back when he was a kid, things changed, he