Theme Of Tradition In The Lottery

In both We Have Always Lived in the Castle and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, tradition plays a very significant part in the meaning and theme of the story. Both works, although by the same author, show tradition in different ways. One theme shared by both stories is: People use tradition to mask inhumane actions. My artwork showcases this theme by using a mixture of colors and flowers to symbolize the way society can trick it 's people into doing bad things by simply using a word like “tradition” to mask it. For my piece I selected colors and flowers whose meanings could relate to both texts and their common theme. One side of the mask is yellow, bright,and happy, and one side is dark and evil. The flowers I chose for the happy side consisted of white carnations, cosmos, daisies, and lily of the valley. The white carnations symbolize faithfulness and innocence, this relates to how innocent Jackson’s description of the town was in “The Lottery” when she says, “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth if a full summer day: the flowers were blossoming profusely”( The Lottery 1). The words “profusely” and “fresh” connotes that the town is a perfect, quaint little place that people would love to live. This, as we find out later, is the exact opposite for some. The cosmos meaning of orderly tied in well with how Merricat is always treated the same when she goes into the village. This is shown when she says, “It never mattered who was in the grocery