The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a thrilling masterpiece created in 1948. This short story starts off by welcoming clear sunny skies, green grass and children gathering stones at play. It allows the reader to positively accept this introduction without knowing it will later build on suspense and devastation. Soon after, children run off to meet with their families to await the annual “lottery”. They sacrifice one person from a single household to make sure they have a successful year of growing crops without any scientific evidence to account for this tradition. Everyone carefully draws out a paper from an old, almost falling apart black box. They usually try to get it over with as soon as possible because even though some of them don’t agree, it is the easiest way to forget about it and return to their every day lives. Like the end of a sentence, a black dot on the paper is utilized to mark the end of their existence. Jackson brilliantly utilizes situational irony, symbolisms, fear and tradition to express the dangers of conformity within every society.
Conformity is the willingness to accept society’s norms as your own in order to fit in with the group. By doing so, people are less likely to question or go against socially accepted behavior. This can become very challenging when it comes to tradition because it is difficult to stray away from ideas that have been embedded in people’s minds since they were born. Shirley Jackson used the black box to symbolize how certain traditions become obsolete, therefore, we should have an open mind to new ones and have the autonomy to decide what is right from wrong. In the story, it states that, “Every year after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box but, every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained”. This conveys the idea of conformity and how badly the village has failed at letting old traditions die.
The villagers choose to do nothing about it even if their hearts are splintered with fear and lives stained with the guilt of killing another person.
The author leaves the reader to wonder and evaluate the overall inhumanity, fear and devastation that surrounds us all in today’s society. Jackson purposefully didn’t state the exact location or year of this event because it can happen anywhere at any given moment. When it comes down to any type of “lottery” people are willing to sacrifice others and their own ideals in order to save themselves the trouble. Out of fear, people choose to not speak up against norms because they feel as if society won’t accept them and in return, negatively label them. It may seem easier to conform and align with traditions as opposed to challenge them but we hold the power to consider which traditions do the greatest good. Not everything that is old is wise and that leads me to end off with a great quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower, “ Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him”.
Works Cited:
Translation. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://www.quotes.net/quote/259
The Lottery at FullReads. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2018, from http://fullreads.com/literature/the-lottery/
Great job on the post! I think that you chose wonderful themes to pull from this story and it was very well thought out. Fortunately, I read this story prior to college so I am aware of the context pertaining to the story. Even some of the themes that you touch on, such as situational irony, is a topic that was new to me. I really liked how you compared the society in “The Lottery” to our current society, which I feel is a solid comparison.
ReplyDelete-Kyra Moore
I thought it was pretty smart of the Shirley Jackson to purposefully leave the details of when the story takes place nebulous; in order to let the message of, "blind conformity being something that can be dangerous" to stand mostly uncontested as one of the definite messages of the story. So that discussions of the story couldn't as easily be mired in the semantics of the idiosyncrasies of a certain day and age.
ReplyDelete-Kenneth
I agree with Kyra in appreciating your comparison to the society in "The Lottery" to that of present day. I think that while obviously we aren't drawing names out of hats and sacrificing lives, there is something to be said about the conformity of our society. However, I think just as much can be said about the unconformity of our society. Now more than ever are people speaking or acting out against previous "traditional norms" because of their desire for change or equality.
ReplyDeleteJAred Islas
Our current society is plagued I feel with unnecessary rules that people blindly follow without questioning because that is how we have been conditioned, these rules were set in place at a time where I knowledge on the subject was not where it is now so the rules I believe should be changed. The drug war and laws on substances is a big issue because it is used to target minority groups and people the government do not like, such as the hippies in the 60's and 70's because they did not like the war in Vietnam. I see now that there is a big push to decriminalize marijuana in the senate right now, but that is not enough, we need to legalize, tax, and help the people devastated the most by the drug wars, only then will the effects be reversed.
ReplyDeleteCarter Messner
I completely agree with your post. It is always hard to break the tradition and culture which was set in mind since birth and adopt new one. When we look at the story on "The Lottery", eventhough the family in the story felt guilt of killing their member of their family they never made any kind of move to change the tradition. It takes a lot of courage and work to break a tradition. Great post!
ReplyDelete-Weini W.
The hardest part of development is accepting change. I believe that you communicated the message of "The Lottery" well in that aspect. Because something has always been a certain way causes many not to question it and when people do start to question, they are shot down by those around them. To not be an outsider people go with the flow until they are the one affected by the negative outcome. However, by then it is usually too late. I felt this story communicated that well. Also, I love that quote you used to end the story. It really made the message of the story truly obvious.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, whenever I think of the lottery I connect it to religion. The poeple used to be devout in their praise and adoration. For every silly thing they used to do in the name of their religion seemed to have reason. FOr example, the Westboro Baptist Church. I don't think i need to say more on that. Ultimately, tradition of how things are done or how they operate are passed down but the traditional actions surrounding it has faded away and all that is left is nonsensical acts.
ReplyDelete-Dianesa Sanon
I really enjoyed your post and it gave me a different perspective towards the short story. The way I understood The Lottery was based on trying to stay committed to older traditions when they no longer go with our new generation. And in a way conformity does have a lot to do with is; some places are afraid of change—afraid of what is to come. But by being afraid they stay decades behind and never prosper mentally, physically, and or behaviorally.
ReplyDeleteSam, I am parallel to your reply on religion. I have a strong belief that religion separates people. In my opinion the lottery represents how religious people are motivated by tradition. . . only doing what was taught to them. The black box represents the source that everyone of the religion follows. There is some always wanting to reform it but the tradition is so strong that it becomes difficult to accomplish. There is always a time when conformity has to be modified due the changing of time.
ReplyDelete-Rob D