Dangerous Traditions

Dangerous Traditions “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, is an interesting story about how people can be affected by traditions. It also shows somewhat of a dark symbolism behind these traditions and how some people will let such things control their lives and the lives of others. After reading the story, my first reaction was “wow!” I did not expect that the winner would be rewarded with death. The ending of the story was very surprising, because when you think of the word “lottery", you think getting a prize or something good. While seeing the story unravel to a disturbing conclusion I was extremely shocked. As I was reading there were clues that supported the dark symbolism like the black box and how everyone was worried about it and starting the event. Although it is not evident until the end of the story that the black box represented death instead of prosperity. Mr. Summers keeps suggesting that a new box should be made since the one they had was old and worn out. The villagers claimed that the box represented tradition, but they did not really take very good care of it, leaving one to wonder if the real reason was that the villagers did not want to tamper with it, thinking it might eventually lead to their own death.
Right after I finished reading the story, I wondered why they carried on such a horrible tradition. Why do they have to punish their neighbors by throwing stones at them without a valid reason? One would think that the stones being gathered at the beginning of the story were just something that the children did to occupy their time until the lottery began. Instead they were the very things that would be used to kill the unfortunate “winner” that pulled the slip of paper with the black dot on it.
It is really unfair to Mrs. Hutchinson, like she stated. However, if she wasn’t the one who drew the paper with the black spot to receive the death sentence, even then she would not have said a single word if someone else was chosen, so