The “Lottery” written by Shirley
Jackson, is a short story containing a theme of communities having a “tribal”
nature to them. In this story the people
within this community have a ritual or a “lottery” that is performed every
year. This lottery is not a good lottery
that you want to win, but a lottery that leads to the stoning of an individual
that is selected from a drawing. This short story conveys this theme because of
the fact that even though everyone sees this stoning as a bad thing; they never
try to stop it. This to me shows that
this community is stuck with the rituals that were created in the past and are
unwilling to change anything in fear that something bad will happen. Such as when a Mrs. Adams says “Some places
have already quit lotteries” and Old Man Warner proclaims that there is “Nothing
but trouble with that. Pack of young
fools.” This sort of behavior reminds me
of tribes that to this day still practice the customs, such as having their own
government, and don’t want to change this because of fear that something will
go wrong.
I come from a small town such as this
one and I know that when someone wants something changed, there is always a
battle over if it should be changed. Just recently the town that I am from wanted to change the parking situation on one of the main roads. This new parking policy went into effect, but everyone had been doing the same thing for so long, that they didn't follow the law or just didn't care cause the way of the past it the way it should be. This type of behavior shows even with the most simple task of parking a different way, people of a small town are stuck in their ways and just want everything to remain the way it is. In the end the new parking policy was dismissed and it stayed the way it was in the first place.
