"The Lottery"

The short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a tradition that takes place every year in the town square. Resident of the town assemble on the appointed date and draw slips of paper out of a worn out black box. At the end, the person with the slip of paper that has the black dot on it is the winner of the lottery. The award for this particular lottery is to be stoned to death by all the resident of the town.

Over the years the lottery has become a tradition that has lost its meaning and some residents are wondering if they should even continue to practice their outdated ritual. Nobody remembers the origin or reason for the lottery; they only participate because it’s what they’ve done for generations.
“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner [. . .] “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”
Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them [. . .] There’s always been a lottery[.]” (Jackson 408)
Remarks like this illustrate the difficulty involved with changing an outdated tradition. The younger generations begin to realize the absurdity of certain practices and would like to change them, but don’t because they might fear retribution or being different from the crowd.

A modern day counterpart to the lottery and one that has been occurring for centuries is racism. Everyone knows that racism is unacceptable, and yet there are still people who do it. And like the children in “The Lottery”, racism is usually learned from their parents and because of this it is difficult to stop. The children hear their parents make a negative comment about people who are different and the children grow up believing that this is acceptable. People are also more accepting of racism until it is aimed in their direction. In the story Mrs. Hutchinson was a willing participant in the lottery until her family drew the slip of paper with the dot on it. At this point Tessie Hutchinson was no longer willing to participate, “It wasn’t fair,” Tessie said. (Jackson 409) When you are the one being singled out you realize how unfair the practice really is.