.......
........
We’ve always done it this way!
Civilizations from ancient Egypt to current cultures around the world have taken part in practices and ideals that are purely outrageous to us. And yet, that’s completely understandable because most likely, we confuse them just as much with our crazy facial injections and habits of consumerism. But there is a certain point, where no matter what part of the world you are in, it is just all around senseless. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” we see the flaws in human nature through an absolutely shocking tradition of human sacrifice. “The Lottery demonstrates people’s reluctance to reject outdated traditions, laws, and practices for the most foolish of reasons.
The people of this town host a lottery every June in which they pull names out of a black box to decide who is to be sacrificed as a way to guarantee a plentiful agricultural harvest. As the old saying goes, “Lottery in June corn be heavy soon!" (Shirley Jackson, 265) What makes this short story especially shocking is the setting. It is set in an American town between the fifties and sixties. It is this item in the story that allows the reader to connect and see the truth of what is happening in his/her own backyard. The fact that these townspeople are so superstitious that they are sacrificing someone every year in order to gain a plentiful harvest tells us that we have not lost as much of our savageness over the years as we had hoped we have. We see the village’s refusal to accept change when Mr. Adams, a citizen of this village says, “They talk about how some of the other villages have already quit doing the lottery”, to which Old Man Warner replies, "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while” (Shirley Jackson, 266). As some towns are stopping this tradition, it is spreading the idea to others. There is always a...