THE LOTTERY
NAME
UNIVERSITY AFFILIATION DETAILS
The Lottery
After reading the “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, I was quick to discover the key theme of danger of tradition. The characters in this story blindly follows these traditions because, that’s how things were done there. The village lottery leads to violent killings each year. This bizarre rituals indicate how dangerous tradition can become when people happen to follow it blindly. Before I understand what rituals they were conducting, their preparations seemed to be harmless and they also selected a pathetic man to lead the lottery. Kids run up and down looking for stones in the city square (123helpme.com, 2016).
Every individual seems occupied with a small black box that contains some slip papers which are made by hands. Tradition links small towns bringing together families and generations. The writer indicated that, the villagers do not understand where the lottery came from, but they were purposed to preserve the tradition regardless what it took them (Sparknotes.com, 2016).
Their acceptance of lottery has led them to commit murder atrocities that this becomes the way of the town. Depending with the way they are portrayed, they feel prowess to change and funny enough, there is no one forcing them to keep these traditions. When these people who are just ordinary individuals come from their homes. Before they return to their homes for lunch, they commit murder just because they are told to. They have no good reason for killing but since no body questions them, they have nothing to fear. Traditions here are used as the justification to commit murder (Sparknotes.com, 2016). My question is, why were the persecutions random including children?
References
123helpme.com,. (2016). The Lottery, Shirley Jackson -- Morals and Values in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Retrieved 24 January 2016, from http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=123191
Sparknotes.com,. (2016). SparkNotes: The Lottery: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols. Retrieved 24 January 2016, from http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/the-lottery/themes.html