Tradition In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

“Shirley Jackson was born on December 14th, 1916 in San Francisco, California. She grew up in Burlingame, California”. “At a young age living in California she wanted to pursue her career in writing poetry and short stories”. In Shirley’s teenage years she moved to the east coast where she attended university of Rochester.The following year Shirley attended Syracuse University where her writing became serious and finally wrote her first book. She then married a man named Stanley Hyman. Stanley was an editor which he has experience in writing as well. After college the two got married, had kids, and moved to Vermont where Stanley got a job offer at Bennington College. With a lot on her hands Shirley never gave up on writing short stories. “The Lottery” which was Shirley’s 2nd book made her well known. It caused an embroilment because of what the story was about. When you hear the word “Lottery” some might think money and some might think tradition. The violent behavior included being stone and murdered. This type of event wasn’t a maybe I’ll show up maybe I won’t, it was mandatory. It’s a small town so everyone knows each other and everyone knows what’s going on.You’ll be lucky after this event to go home alive. This story was more about tradition, but this type of tradition was a violent one.
It was June 27th clear and sunny day and the kids
are out of school for summer vacation. In the village school is a routine for all the kids to get an education. During the summer everyone has freedom and more time for themselves.This location is known as the village where people from the town come to gatherings and special events. The gathering location for the lottery was in the square, between the the post office and the bank. The lottery was scheduled to take place early morning because of how long it takes. Due to the amount of people in town it can take 2 days.
Mr. Graves is the one who swears Mr.Summers in before the event begins. Mr. Joe Summers conducts the lottery in town. He’s married to a scold with no kids and is all about progress. He’s the reason the lottery started late because he showed up late. Old Man Warner is the luckiest of them all. This was the 77th lottery he has been in which is incredible and still alive not dead. Old Man Warner rants a lot and does not want the lottery to end. Mr and Mrs Adams are the ones who’re trying to end the lottery and wants everyone to be civilized. The Delacroix son’s are the ones who’re gathering all the stones for the “lucky winner”. Baxter Martin runs the grocery store in town. The Dunbar family lost their child in the previous lottery. The dad from the Watson Family is believed to be dead from previous lottery.
In “The Lottery” you see how heartless people are because this is a big event for people in town.
This is a cruel event where people attend to stone others and watch someone lose a loved one. 15 countries around the world still perform stoning up to this day. Countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and many more perform stoning. This is horrifying to even think of because people find this even gratifying, even young ones feel the same way. This is a bad form of human behavior and this what The Adam’s family were trying to prevent. Whoever the winner is each year of this event wish they were the loser because of
death.
Before the event starts Mr.Summers makes sure everyone is present. The families go up to the black box and pick their paper in alphabetical order. The rule is to not open the paper until everyone has theirs. Halfway through the event Mrs.Tessie starts to rant and go off saying how drawings are not fair. On page 413 4th paragraph it states “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!”. She then calls out her married daughter and says “There’s Don and Eva,” Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. “Make them take their chance!”.
There was a redrawing which the villagers didn’t agree with. Everyone had their pieces of paper ready to open. It was finally time to reveal who’s life was coming to an end. Mr.Summers gave the okay for everyone to show their paper. Ms. Tessie was the only who didn’t show her paper. Moral of the story is Ms. Tessie was the winner and she was stoned to death. The fact that no one grieved that this was happening says a lot. The stone itself symbolized death and the three legged stool symbolized the 3rd day.
This isn’t the real way a lottery is suppose to go I mean the story is fiction, but humans still go through cruelty events. From human trafficking, women being labeled in a bad way in different countries, and child laborers worldwide. Mr.Hutchinson didn’t care that his wife was being stoned I mean he didn’t even try to prevent it. That just shows how much people didn’t care about each other in that phase of time. Stoning may not actually be apart of stoning, but it is real a event. Will stoning every stop ? Who knows only time could tell.
The boys were playing with the rocks in the beginning of the story. That was their practice to take someone’s life away. It’s like kids now playing with toy guns or video games that has killings. That’s basically starting them early for something they shouldn’t be doing at all. Isis has young ones fighting and they won’t hold back at all. Whatever they’re told to do they will do it. The boys piled up rocks for the people that’s doing what they were suppose to do. Out of all the boys who piled the rocks up said “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t this it’s wrong”. They were going for the kill and had fun doing it.