The Lottery Theme Analysis

A dominant theme in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is the threats that come along with following traditions. The people of the village follow a tradition that has been going on for as long as they can remember because they rely on the fact that it will stop them from going back to their primitive ways. At first the tradition of partaking in the lottery does not seem so bad seeing as how it’s true nature is not revealed till the end. However, it is then revealed that the lottery is one unlucky villager being brutally murdered each year, it shows that by doing so they never left their primitive ways to begin with. Following traditions aimlessly, leads to lack of questioning the actions, tradition is its own justification. Traditions passed
Mr. Summers, a man who conducts all the town activities, places a black wooden box on a stool, and shakes up the papers inside of it. The black box is a symbol of the lottery, it also shows the villagers devotion to the box that is torn and falling apart yet they insist on keeping it instead of replacing it, even though it is just a box. They are so loyal to it that when making a new box, a part of the original box is made with it. They do not revel in the fact that they changed the stone chips to slips of paper, or that they only use stones to kill, yet they care about the old black box, this just shows how illogical the villagers are. In short, the people take turns selecting pieces out of the box, and whomever has the misfortune getting the slip with the black dot seals their fate of being stoned to death. Since the tradition had been going on for so long, the villagers do not even entirely remember the way it is supposed to go. The narrator acknowledges this by
The narrator also states that “the original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago… Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (Jackson ). Jackson here is criticizing that the villagers indiscriminately follow this murder ritual, even though there is no one forcing them to not change their ways. These residents have a normal day, then gather around, murder an innocent human being brutally, and then resumes their lives and wait for next year. The most frightening part about this ritual is, no one thinks twice about turning against the innocent, and the only detail they seem to remember about the tradition is the stones that they use to murder the