Tradition in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Essay Example

Every culture has its own yearly tradition, for example celebrating birthdays in a certain way or Christmas or Hanukkah, but this village has a yearly tradition very different and cruel compared to others. In the short story “The Lottery'” the villager’s yearly tradition is stoning someone they know to death, and they do this tradition by making everyone in the village pull one slip of paper out of a black box, and whoever gets the one with the black mark on it gets stoned to death. In this short story, Shirley Jackson presents the idea that some people have a blind devotion to tradition, and that they may have the tendency to participate even if that tradition is cruel. Shirley Jackson develops this theme idea by using characterization, and dialogue.

Shirley Jackson uses this characterization of the villagers to convey the theme idea of blind devotion to tradition. The villager’s blind devotion to tradition is shown in their actions and decisions when they must murder someone they know in their village by brutally stoning them to death. With such a cruel tradition they participate in, it would be hard for even the kids to participate in killing someone, but it says “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example.” This piece of evidence shows that even the little kids have this blind devotion to this tradition, and they don't care about murdering someone which shows just how disturbing this tradition really is. This overall characterizes the kids as cruel and uncaring, and because the kids blind devotion to tradition is basically inherited based on what they see their friends and family doing, it causes them to think it is ok to go and stone someone they know to death because someone said it was ok to do. Another example of how Shirley Jackson utilizes the characterization of the villagers, is when the villagers forget the black box to pull the slips of paper out, but they don't forget to use the stones to kill the person with. This shows that even though the people in the village forgot to bring the original black box they still didn't forget to use the stones. This characterizes them as cruel and uncaring because the only thing they really care about is stoning someone to death and not even the main part of the tradition which is the black box that they have used since the start. Shirley Jackson shows through characterization that the kids, and the villagers were so devoted to the tradition that they didn't even realize what they were doing was cruel and wrong, which supports the theme Blind Devotion to Tradition.

Shirley Jackson uses dialogue of the villagers to convey the theme idea of blind devotion to tradition. This blind devotion to tradition is shown through dialogue when everyone pulls a slip of paper out of the black box and Bill Hutchinson gets the slip of paper with the mark on it. As soon as everyone figures that out, Tessie Hutchinson says “you didn't give him enough time to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!” Then Bill says “Shut up Tessie.” This piece of evidence shows just how blind Bill is to this tradition because he is more devoted to this tradition than his own wife. This overall Characterizes Bill as uncaring and selfish because when he pulled the slip of paper out of the box he got the paper with a mark on it, which meant that someone in his family was going to be killed whether it was him or Tessie, but when Tessie tried to help him by saying it was unfair Bill just told her to shut up because he is more devoted to the tradition than his own wife. Another example of how Shirley Jackson uses dialogue to show the villagers blind devotion to the tradition is when Old Man Warner said “Nothing but trouble in that, Pack of young fools.” after Mrs. Adams said “Some places have already quit lotteries.” This piece of evidence shows that Old Man Warner is so fixated to this tradition, because when Mrs. Adams tried to tell Old Man Warner that other people had stopped the lottery. Why can't we? He says there is no good in that and then calls her and everyone a pack of young fools. This characterizes Old Man Warner as uncaring and selfish because he cares so much about this tradition where someone is brutally murdered, more than he does the people in this village. Shirley Jackson shows through dialogue that Bill Hutchinson, and Old Man Warner were so devoted to this tradition that they didn't even realize that their actions were wrong and cruel, which supports the theme blind devotion to tradition.

In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson does a very good job of presenting the idea that some people have a blind devotion to tradition. She does this by developing the theme idea of blind devotion to tradition through dialogue and characterization to show how the villagers act when they are faced with this tradition every year. She also shows through characterization and dialogue how selfish and cruel these villagers can be when it comes to either them or someone else they know dieing. In conclusion, I think Shirley Jackson does a very good job of presenting the idea that some people have a blind devotion to tradition, and that they may have the tendency to participate even if that tradition is cruel.