Shirley Jackson Blame For The Lottery

There are a myriad of different possibilities for the theme of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, but to me the story represents the concept of blame. As humans, we sometimes feel a need to target someone as the root of our problems, even if we know that they were in no way involved. This makes us feel better because we are able to take out our anger or stress on someone else. In some cases this person may be picked at random, such as Tessie was in the story. This can at times be unfair to the target, considering that in some cases they may have done absolutely nothing wrong. Tessie speaks for these unfortunate people when she shrieks, “ It isn’t fair, it isn’t right!”

Come to think of it, the actual lottery in itself is a way of showing how