The Influence of Tradition in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Essay Example

In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson shows the strength of tradition, and how it can influence us even long after it has lost its meaning; she does this using stark symbolism and irony. 

“The Lottery” is packed full of symbolism at every corner, the most apparent example of this is the Blackbox, the box that the Lottery centers around. At the time the story takes place, the box is “no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained” (pg.2), this is a symbol for how the tradition has completely lost its original meaning, despite this, the residents of the village still continue to follow the tradition yearly without question. Another significant symbol is the marked slip of paper, it symbolizes how the Lottery is fully within the villagers power to stop and be treated trivially when compared to its true purpose. In the center of the slip resides a black spot “Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office”(pg.7). There is significant emphasis put on the fact that Mr. Summers didn’t put much thought into the slip that would take another human’s life, not even marking it with his own pencil, it just demonstrates how the slip holds no real power aside from the weight the villagers put on the tradition. 

One of the other prolific Literary devices in “The Lottery” is irony. The stones that the children so innocently gather at the beginning of the story seemingly part of a little collecting game come back at the end of the story, and are used as murder weapons to kill Tessie at the end of the story, with even the children having stones “already” before the adults. This is used as a way to shock the reader with the irony of such a childish game being a knife gathering ceremony, as well as show how the tradition is already being ingrained in the children’s heads. At the beginning of the story Shirley Jackson  goes into heavy detail about how the day is excruciatingly perfect, sunny, and happy despite what is slated to happen. Specifically describing the morning as the best weather one could wish for, “filled with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.”(pg. 1), it sets up the story as one of happiness for the villagers as one would normally expect such a day to be embraced as, making for an excellent surprise when they turn it into one of bloodshed and horror all for the sake of tradition. 

Having moved around very often, I can find myself relating to the way “The Lottery” portrays culture and tradition, and how tradition can influence people’s perspective significantly on matters of morality. In Saudi Arabia it’s considered extremely rude to refuse any type of invitation to anything. If a random stranger invites you to join them for dinner, unless it’s extremely inconvenient you are essentially culturally obligated to accept. Whereas here in Canada, where something like that doesn’t have significant cultural and tradition influence exerted on it, it would be seen as creepy for a stranger to just offer you to join them for dinner, it would probably be considered best to try to distance yourself from the situation as quickly as possible. Much of my extended family is stoutly islamic, and many of them still take care to sacrifice or at least eat a goat on the day of sacrifice, which is done to commemorate a story in the Quran, much like how the village folk sacrifice a human each year. I have been to a few of the parties where it happens, and part of the tradition is later cooking and eating the pieces of the lamb.  

The power of tradition is an extremely important theme in “The Lottery'', and while the story may seem far away and dystopian, such sacrifices still happen in our world today. Some African communities still sacrifice people to appease the gods for various reasons: To commemorate finishing a building, to appease the gods for a good harvest, or like the Lottery, the original purpose has simply been forgotten but the tradition still continues. These horrors still continue to be committed and this story is a great reminder to be mindful of that. The reason these traditions can still continue is because of lack of outside interference, it is essential that more attention is brought to the topic.