The Lottery

Mostly everyone has their superstitions or traditions that they keep with them for most of their lives. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the small town of about three hundred people or so all take their chances in the lottery every year at the beginning of summer, and have been doing so for over seventy five years. This lottery is very different then most, instead of gambling with money, everyone in this small town gambles with their own lives. What is the prize? One person in the town gets the prize of being sacrificed for good harvest in the summer by getting stoned to death. The head of each family (usually the father or oldest son), goes up to the town square and reaches into a black box, inside the box are a cluster of folded pieces of paper, one in which has a black dot which indicates the “winner”. After the family is chosen, this year is the Hutchinson’s, all the members of the family go up and draw another slip of paper, this time the one with the black dot gets to be brutally stoned, no matter if it’s a eight year old child, or a seventy year old man. There is much to discuss about the way Jackson uses symbolism and metaphors to hint at what the lottery is really all about.
Jackson’s use of friendly language among the town’s people and the presentation of the lottery as an event similar to the square dances, the teenage club, and Halloween programs illustrate the lottery as a welcomed, festive event.   I think the black box was used to symbolize the way the villagers fail to stand up for their beliefs. "Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything being done. The black box grew shabbier each year, and in some places faded or stained” (Jackson 3). Here is where I believe Jackson is connecting the black box to the people’s beliefs, and he fact that the black box is growing shabbier each year with a lot of faded or stained places, makes me think that the towns...