A Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

The so called the tradition that the town has in happens to be in a stoning to death by the draw of a piece of paper. If the paper that is drawn from the box and has the black mark he/she would be stoned to death. Everyone in this village follows the tradition of the lottery every single year even other villages although other villages take longer than usual, because of a population issue they start on June 2nd. With tradition being the main theme of the short story “The Lottery” it provides the reader with an idea of how the small town has been running for years and will continue to do so. Jackson comes across the short story with her views of tradition being negative, by having an outdated tradition to choose weather they will live or die.

Rocks, yes rocks for the annual lottery. In this story there is a lottery every year, there has been talk about stopping the lottery. But nobody like to upset tradition. And at the end of the lottery the rocks come in handy not for the winner though, especially for this year's winner Tessie Hutchinson. Each year the winner gets stoned to death as a ritually thinking that the crops will grow better if a person is killed.

The box serves as the only true connection to the beginning of the first lottery. Even though the box is worn out and aged, the village people do not want to disrupt the longtime tradition by changing it. The implication of the box in the story, and similar “boxes” today has with society, is that it is not only a significantly esteemed artifact, but simultaneously a significant hindrance to improving ethics as a people. The narrator explains that “The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there” (Jackson 389).

Charmain Baker-Deer ENC1102 Mar 02, 2018 Essay draft 1 Topic: What is the theme of “The Lottery”? “The Lottery” is about small town, with a population of three hundred people. Everyone from the village is subjected to participates in an annual ritual, where members are required to pick from a black box to determine their destiny. In “The Lottery,” Jackson highlights human kind capacity of victimizing violence and tradition to control the masses. This event happens during the summer, and at the end a woman was stoned to death by her friends, families and residence.

A minute passed, all the villagers formed a circle together with the stone that they have picked earlier and they surrounded Tessie. They made sure that the ritual will go over before dinner. Tessie keeps screaming until a stones struck on her head. It was the oldest man in the village, Man Warner urges the villagers on. The villagers descend Tessie with the stones.

They had been using that box since they started with “the lottery's” it was a tradition every time they finished with a lottery they were going to make a new box, but they never did. The black box faded and stained in some places. The black dot represents “death” when they get the black dot it means they won the lottery. “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it…” “All right, folks.” Mr. Summers said.

Shirley Jackson's, “The Lottery,” portrays the tradition of a small town in which a member of the community must get sacrificed in order to allow for a good agricultural season. The ways in which they do so is a fair lottery where citizens draw and see if they are the “chosen one” which they end up stoning to death. All citizens must partake in the lottery, including children and the elderly. Through Jackson’s development of the story, the people seem to be in a state of excitement and thrill when being part of the lottery. The citizens are constantly gossiping, laughing, and kids playing, waiting to see who is next to be stoned.

The paper is forced out of Tess Hutchinson’s hand. “It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office” (Jackson (395). Tess is the winner, which is going to be stoned to death by her village, and even her son is given stones to throw at her. “The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles” (Jackson, 396). The village people were eager and ready to finish the lottery.

Essay Prompt #3 Can you imagine going to a town meeting once a year, with all of your friends, family, and loved ones. At this meeting one person is selected to be stoned to death, not only that but EVERYONE has to help. This brutal event is known as, The Lottery. Shirley Jackson describes the villagers that come to this event in her short story, The Lottery. The feelings of the villagers are often confusing, since they appear to want to keep this terrifying event going, even though they dread it.

The box was very old because it was a tradition to do the lottery once a year. They always talked about getting a new box for the lottery, but they never actually got a new box so they keep using the old one every year. Like said in the story, “The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black, but splintered badly along the side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.” (Jackson) Meaning that the box was very old and fragile. Also in the story, the author stated, “some places on the box were stained and faded.” (Jackson) So, if the box is really old and fragile and the box was stained and faded, that means that they have done the lottery for a long time already. They had the tradition since Old Man Warner was born and he was one of the oldest people living in that village, so that tells you that this tradition has been going on for generations.

He would become very depressed whenever his family would kill one for dinner. During this time, he began to develop the feeling that he should become a preacher. He began to baptize the baby chickens, and even almost drowned one; although, it miraculously survived. When he became a little older, he got to travel to a city in the north, where he experienced things he never knew existed. When he was 17, John Lewis wrote to Martin Luther King Jr. telling him he wanted to desegregate Troy State.

Because of the lack of food, English tried to get the food from the Indians by destroying their villages. After a year, the governor of Virginia ordered his people to make Indians work hard for the English and pay them as corn and skins. They attacked one Indian town, killed fifteen people, threw the children and shot their brains out. The colonizers were not at all ashamed for taking their land. They believed it is good to have their land by brutal means.

In this dream, an eagle flies down and kills all her twenty geese. The beggar says that the Odysseus is the eagle that will come to kill all the “geese” or suitors and no one will “escape from death and doom” (193). Penelope still finds this hard to believe and decides to let Telemachus live a happy life with no worries by leaving him and marrying a suitor. She will hold a contest to and marry the suitor that will shoot an arrow through twelve iron axe heads. The beggar tells her that Odysseus “will be here before the suitors” and win the contest (193).

Abraham owes Selah Strong a debt and is trying to pay it off to him but maggots keep getting into the crop and destroying them. Selah is married to Abraham’s ex fiance, Anna Strong. Abraham goes to the Strong tavern, when Selah and Captain Joyce get into a fight. Selah gets blamed for the fight even thought it was Joyce’s fault and is sent to New Jersey. The next day Captain Joyce is found dead in the forest and Major Hewlett believes that Abraham killed him.

Earl was a passionate Baptist Minister, and Leader in the UNIA. Their participation in the UNIA forced the family relocation to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1926, and less than two years later to Lansing, Michigan. Earl’s UNIA leadership position and passionate preaching about racism incited the White racists groups, Ku Klux Klan set their house on fire to the ground and Klan-like Black Legionaries murdered him in 1931. At six-years old, Malcolm’s father nearly beheaded body was found under a streetcar. Malcolm’s mother never recovered psychologically from the grief and shock of her husband’s death, and had to cook dandelion greens from the street to feed her children alone.