Brian Huynh
3/25/15
English 4
Tenn
Heritage/Tradition
Following along a family’s heritage or a tradition may become difficult to accepting them, their downsides, new changes, or abandoning them. People have grew up or been following certain traditions or heritage to the point of where there may be uncertainty, questions, lack of answers, or curiosity. The most focus case is the lack of questioning and answers towards the people and their heritage/traditions. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a village following a tradition that have been going on for supposedly many generations but lacks the information on why this tradition must be followed. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, a mother awaits for the arrival of her older daughter who
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was sent away to gain an education, but later on learns that her daughter have changed completely along with rejecting her mother’s heritage. With a tradition being followed blindly or having your heritage with no information provided would raise many questions and lack of answers. In “The Lottery”, a small village celebrates a tradition on June 27, where people gather together and do a lottery.
The person who is in charge and is conducting the lottery is Mr.Summers. During the lottery, each person of the village is called up one by one to draw a piece of paper from a black box. People are not allowed to open up the paper until every person of the village have drawn. The person with the piece of paper that contains a black dot is chosen to do the second part of the lottery. The chosen person and his/her family will draw again. Again whoever draws the piece of paper with the black dot within the family, becomes the chosen one to be stone to death by the village. The tradition have been followed by multiple villages and also been abandon by a few. The villagers of this certain small village does not question why this is a mandatory tradition that must be followed which lacks questioning and solid …show more content…
answers. The oldest man of the small village in “The Lottery”, Old Man Warner, have participated in seventy-seven lotteries. He is a stalwart advocate in keeping the lottery tradition and exactly how it is. He called other villages that have abandon or those that stop following traditions as “Pack of Crazy fools” (pg.286). He later describes what he assume the villagers would do, “they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while” (pg.286). Old Man Warner seems to be a firm believer in that stopping this tradition will cause the village to take a change for the worst. He also states a saying that is probably passed down for many generations, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” suggesting that if the lottery is hosted, then there will be food, but if not, the village would not have any food and may return to a much earlier era where food is hunted and gathered. Old man Warner seems to believe in this tradition seriously due to how the village is and how things are. In the small village’s lottery, the chosen person to be stone to death is a woman named, Tessie Hutchinson.
In the beginning of the lottery, when everyone gathered together, Tessie arrived late to the gathering due to her forgetting the day of the lottery. After the drawing of the lottery, Tessie’s husband Bill Hutchinson was the one who have picked the paper with the black dot. After Discovering that her husband got the paper, she suddenly changed and started yelling/protesting against Mr.Summers for not giving “enough time” for Bill to pick his paper. One of the villagers respond to Tessie’s protest, “All of us took the same chance” showing that her protest was useless to say from the start. She still continued to protest but the villagers ignored her and continued on with the lottery. After Tessie’s family have drawn from the lottery’s black box, the person who drew the paper with the black dot is Tessie. When the village heard it was Tessie, Mr.Summers commence the stoning towards Tessie by telling the village, “Let’s finish quickly.” (pg.289) suggesting to finish the lottery fast. As the villagers start to stone Tessie to death, she kept on repeating “It isn’t fair” (pg.289) following after with “it isn’t right” (pg.289). Shortly after, Tessie is stone to
death.
Bill Hutchinson received the winning ticket and Tessie protest against the lottery. Then everyone in her family redraws and it is Tessie who drew the paper with the black dot on it. Then villagers grab stones, and point them at Tessie. Finally, Tessie says it’s not fair and is hit in the head with a stone. 2.
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the theme of the story is dramatically illustrated by Jackson’s unique tone. Once a year the villagers gather together in the central square for the lottery. The villagers await the arrival of Mr. Summers and the black box. Within the black box are folded slips of paper, one piece having a black dot on it. All the villagers then draw a piece of paper out of the box. Whoever gets the paper with the black dot wins. Tessie Hutchinson wins the lottery! Everyone then closes in on her and stones her to death. Tessie Hutchinson believes it is not fair because she was picked. The villagers do not know why the lottery continues to exist. All they know is that it is a tradition they are not willing to abandon. In “The Lottery,” Jackson portrays three main themes including tradition, treason, and violence.
Shirley Jackson?s insights and observations about society are reflected in her shocking and disturbing short story The Lottery. Jackson reveals two general attitudes in this story: first is the shocking tendency for societies to select a scapegoat and second is the idea that communities are victims of social tradition and rituals.
There is a Lottery going on today and we all hold a ticket. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson is asking people to stop for a moment and take a look at the traditions around them. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to show that traditions today are sometimes as misguided as the tradition of the lottery in that small town in Somewhere, USA.
Tradition is huge in small towns and families and allows for unity through shared values, stories, and goals from one generation to the next. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” carries that theme of tradition. The story follows a small town that performs the tradition of holding an annual lottery in which the winner gets stoned to death. It (tradition) is valued amongst human societies around the world, but the refusal of the villagers in “The Lottery” to let go of a terrifying long-lasting tradition suggests the negative consequences of blindly following these traditions such as violence and hypocrisy.
In the story “The Lottery” all the people in a little town get together to join in a lottery. Tessie Hutchinson gets the winning ticket with the black spot on it. The black spot on the slip of paper means she will be stoned to death. Everyone joins together to stone Tessie. No one cared that they were about to stone her not even her family. Tessie though it was ok to be a part of something like this in the beginning but now that she got picked she didn’t think it was ok because it was her that was going to be stoned.
Shirley Jackson’s “Lottery” satirically creates a society that puts the importance of tradition above even the life of the members of the community, as indicated by Old Man Warner’s response to Mr. Adams stating, “‘[O]ver in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.’ Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools … Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them … There’s always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly” (413). Here Old Man Warner defends the tradition of their society, though notably without justifying the tradition. Rather, he focuses on the people of other villages and the tradition as self-evident, both logical fallacies. The first argument he makes in favor of continuing to have a lottery is an ad
The presence of tradition in “The Lottery” gives the village something to consider important, even though the traditions may be considered outdated. However, the villagers follow their lottery rituals so closely that they are unable to see what they are actually doing, which is randomly killing one villager without reason, other that it is what they have always done. Furthermore, some traditions are forgotten completely, leaving voids in the overall point of the lottery. Overall, throughout “The Lottery”, tradition is a reoccurring element that helps aid in the development of the setting, characters, and style.
When breaking news is being told the majority of the population just accepts what they hear and do not bother to research facts or more information about the issue or subject. In the village, the same type of cycle happens. Although the towns folk question the lottery, none of them bother to speak out since everyone is fixed on tradition, leading them to blindly follow in this cruel act every year. Jackson shows that the townsfolk don’t really have a strong knowledge as to how the lottery came to be, but they try to preserve the tradition anyway. This is the same way humans tend to listen and are naïve to new things they hear. Old man Warner in the village looks down upon the other towns that have removed the lottery calling them a “pack of crazy fools” (Jackson). His opinion is that without the lottery, the villagers will return back to their primitive ancestral behaviors. Since no one has spoken out against the lottery, this allowed stoning or murder has become normal to the people of the village. They feel as if they cannot change or even try to change any parts of the tradition, however, no one is forcing them to keep doing the lottery. These villagers are so
The town's citizens are eager, gathering in the town square in order to take part in the yearly lottery. With the story focused around one particular family, the Hutchinsons, who are so anxious to get it all over with until they find that one of their members is to participate in the lottery's closing festivities, Tessie. Of course, unlike your typical lotteries, this is not one that you would want to win. The one chosen from the lottery is to undertake a cruel and unusual death by stoning at the hands of their fellow townsmen for the sake that it may bring a fruitful crop for the coming harvest season. Ironically, many of the towns people have suggested that the lottery be put to an end, but most find the idea unheard of being that they have lived in it's practice for most of their lives.
Tessie Hutchinson was angry that her husband had gotten the lottery, so the family drew again. In the final draw, the crowd saw that Tessie had gotten the paper with the black dot. The instant the crowd knew who got the lottery, they began grabbing the stones the boys had piled up earlier. Formerly, Mr. Summers joined the crowd and said “let’s finish quickly” to be in time for noon dinner(Jackson, 7). At this instant, Mrs. Delacroix had “selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands” for the ritual(Jackson, 7). This sentence shows how terrible the lottery is and how extreme it can get. Without delay, Tessie is standing in the middle of the crowd when “a stone hit her on the side of the head” and that was the signal to begin the ritual(Jackson, 7). The lottery is just a cruel thing to the victim and their family who have to watch and be a part
Every year, the lottery is held, and every year a person is killed. Each villager neglects to acknowledge the unjustness of the lottery and continue to participate because of the tradition it represents in their society. The lottery was a cultural tradition passed down from the very first settlers of the village. It makes up a huge part of the village’s history and culture. The villagers pay recognition to their culture by continuing the tradition of the lottery even though the lottery is not morally right. On page 93 it states, “There was a proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year… There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came to draw from the box…” This quote shows the tribal-like rituals and traditions associated with the lottery. Through the years, some of the rituals of the lottery were lost, but the main elements of the lottery remained the same. The idea behind the lottery was that the ancestors, of the villagers, believed that human sacrifice would bring in good harvest. This led to the development and continuation
In an agriculture-dominant village, the lottery is practiced as the annual tradition. The “fortunate” lottery winner will be stoned to death by the town after a few rounds of drawing lots. Such flabbergasted ritual is seen as a norm in that village and the villagers even feel excited over this cruel occasion due to the mob psychology of people. The villagers abandon their rationale in demonstrating violence towards the innocent “winner”. When Tessie draws the winner piece, everyone in the village straight up turns on her with stones and pebbles including Mrs. Delacroix, her
She showed up late to the lottery which makes it seem like it is not important to her, she later shows she doesn’t take it seriously when she shoves her husband and tells him not to be nervous when selecting his card from the box. After everybody opens their card and it is revealed that her husband has open the one with the black dot, Tessie reacts in a very different way than before. “Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn 't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn 't fair!"” ( Jackson) It now seems as if the lottery is a huge deal and she doesn’t want anything to do with the results of having her husband draw the card with the black dot. Tessie pushing her husband and her yelling about her husband being selected can be seen as Tessie disobeying the social order that is in the village. She does this by disrespecting her husband and then questioning the decision of Mr. Summers. (Capitalist Society in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Comparative Literature) It is finally proven that she finds the lottery a big deal when she is speechless once the rest of her family show that they don’t have the black dot on their card during the drawing for the
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that brings to light the problems a society faces when blindly following traditions. Due to a tradition as old as the town itself, every year someone is forced to draw the “black spot.” This black spot means that person is stoned to death, regardless of family status or even age. Communities have a tendency to stick to traditions, regardless of how logical it may or may not be, how old it is, or even whether or not everyone understands why they continue it; and traditions should always have their importance reevaluated.