Blindly Following Tradition In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson
The Lottery
Does thoughtlessly obeying tradition justify senseless and violent murder? The setting of the story takes place in a small fictional village around the time an annual event dubbed “the lottery” is being conducted, garnering the attention of the entire community. Furthermore, the tone set in the beginning is that of a jovial and positive atmosphere sharply contrasting the disturbing ending and revelation of exactly what “the lottery” is; all the while exploring themes corresponding to the potentially harrowing effects of blindly following tradition, the fear of change and the stagnating effect it can have, and the impersonal randomness of prosecution. To summarize, due to the reasons listed above, society should be more mindful of the traditions that it faithfully upholds. First, the theme of carelessly obeying traditions gets explored near the beginning of the story with the seemingly innocuous village children gathering stones and chatting amongst themselves. At first glance, readers can assume that the stone gathering had no relation to the "lottery" and was just a harmless little way to pass the time while the other townsfolk were gossiping and finishing up their chores. …show more content…
In addition, "Old Man Warner" obviously believes that the lottery somehow perpetuates their order as well as their way of life and that its absence will mark the gradual decline into anarchy and barbarism exemplified by the quotes " they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves" and "we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and
Does thoughtlessly obeying tradition justify senseless and violent murder? The setting of the story takes place in a small fictional village around the time an annual event dubbed “the lottery” is being conducted, garnering the attention of the entire community. Furthermore, the tone set in the beginning is that of a jovial and positive atmosphere sharply contrasting the disturbing ending and revelation of exactly what “the lottery” is; all the while exploring themes corresponding to the potentially harrowing effects of blindly following tradition, the fear of change and the stagnating effect it can have, and the impersonal randomness of prosecution. To summarize, due to the reasons listed above, society should be more mindful of the traditions that it faithfully upholds. First, the theme of carelessly obeying traditions gets explored near the beginning of the story with the seemingly innocuous village children gathering stones and chatting amongst themselves. At first glance, readers can assume that the stone gathering had no relation to the "lottery" and was just a harmless little way to pass the time while the other townsfolk were gossiping and finishing up their chores. …show more content…
In addition, "Old Man Warner" obviously believes that the lottery somehow perpetuates their order as well as their way of life and that its absence will mark the gradual decline into anarchy and barbarism exemplified by the quotes " they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves" and "we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and