The Lottery Tradition Analysis

The unfair tradition of the Lottery by Shirley Jackson symbolizes a loss of humanity and an unstable society, afraid of facing the reality of the practices they partake in, so they continue to do so with no hesitation and mercy of their actions. Shirley provides an insight on what society is like today, following a trend or hype because of the publicity and the majority of people engaging themselves in it. These “followers” get so caught up in these habits that it makes them so immoral things without thought or question. As Mark Twain said “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” (Mark Twain). This tradition has become a security for the villagers, leaving their mind at decay, lost in the effort

Summers calls family names to make sure no one is absent. Tessie Hutchinson arrives to the crowd late and flustered, claiming she had forgotten the lottery was taking place. Tessie called unwanted hate and attention from the crowd and her luck just started to be bitter. As soon as the lottery begins the Hutchinson family is selected. Mr. Summers asks Bill, Tessie 's father how many kids he has and he replies, 3 validating the number of people in the family. Each family member has to draw another paper and hope there is nothing on it. When they all draw and open their slips, they see Tessie has drawn the paper with the black dot on it. Tessie being shocked and scared for her life yells “It wasn’t fair “and that she didn’t have enough time to draw her paper (Jackson 542) . Without hesitation Mr. Summers orders everyone to hurry up, The kids, and the villagers, including Tessie’s family ignore her as they stone her to death “Well everyone now we’ve got to hurry up to get the job done in time” ordered Mr. Summers (Jackson 542).

Shirley Jackson the author of the lottery claims that the villagers don’t really know much about the lottery’s origin but try to preserve the tradition nevertheless. The villagers are blinded by this violent ritual they call tradition because no one has tried to stop or oppose it. The villagers believed that if they abandoned the lottery, that they would all return to the primitive times and live like cavemen. For

Society nowadays will hate or blame a certain person or group just because the majority believes a certain thing against them. The villagers all follow the same ritual and actions that it has become evident throughout the years that no one will ever be different. The effortless turn on Tessie when the black dot dictated her life showed how fast the villagers and even her own family killed her, just because of this materialistic black box that somehow rules their whole society. The families seemed like a detrimental part of the story, how they stood together during the lottery and how the children fled to stand by their parents showed that being together before the huge announcement was somewhat important. But as soon as the black dot was assigned, none of that seemed to matter to the villagers once the victim was chosen.

As mentioned in the story there were some small rules that were abandoned as a part of the lottery, and all the villagers claim to be fully loyal to the lottery despite the fact that many parts have faded over the years they still chose to be loyal towards the black box and oblivious towards other relics that were practiced back then as a part of the lottery tradition. This gives a reason for the villagers to not follow a terrible