Flaws In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

Humans, as a species, are flawed in the deepest sense of the word. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” satirizes many of these flaws. In her piece, she details a town’s tradition of gathering together once a year to have a ‘lottery’. In this lottery, each the head of each family draws a piece of paper from a black box. If the head draws a paper with a black dot in the middle, each member of the family will draw from a smaller selection of papers, once of which has a black dot in the middle. Whoever draws the paper with the black dot in the middle will be stoned to death. In her story, Tessie Hutchinson is the unfortunate recipient of the black dot. Despite her protests, she was stoned. Shirley Jackson accurately depicts the many flaws in humanity,

including following unnecessary traditions, wishing ill on people for things they cannot control, and treating serious events lightly.
Often, in society, people will find themselves following many traditions that, while they used to have purpose, no longer contain that same meaning, leaving the people to sometimes wonder why they are doing what they are doing. Even when people have no idea why a certain tradition is done, they will continue to do. This holds true in “The Lottery.” Many of the townspeople were unaware of why many of the actions in the lottery were performed. As time went on, many aspects of their tradition was lost. Jackson writes, “At one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery” (2). Despite having lost large parts of the original tradition, the townspeople still continued to perform the lottery. When it was mentioned that another town had eradicated the lottery, Old Man Warner, the oldest citizen in the village, said, “Pack of crazy fools, listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them” (Jackson 4). The people are not willing to give up their tradition, even though it has changed so much that the people no longer entirely understand it. The same is true in modern society. While many traditions are not as gruesome as stoning a random person to death, a decent amount of modern traditions, such as carving pumpkins for Halloween and decorating a Christmas tree every year, have lost their original purpose. Most people do not know where modern traditions came from, and those that do know the origins do not partake in these traditions for the reason they were once done. When people choose to participate in traditions like pumpkin carving, christmas trees, or even hand shakes, they do so because it is what has always been done. In cases such as the lottery, these actions can lead to terrible outcomes.
Regularly, in society, people will disliked or even hated by others because of certain traits they are unable to control, including their race, gender, or sexuality.

This quality is shown in “The Lottery” as the townspeople stone one of their own to death because she was unfortunate enough to choose the wrong slip of paper. The story states that, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (Jackson 7) Had someone else chosen the paper with the black dot, that person would have been stoned instead of Tessie, despite the fact that they were unable to control what paper they chose. Likewise, in today’s society, people will be hated and sometimes even killed because of who they are. No one decided that they wanted to be black instead of white, however people will still be hated for being black, despite the fact that there is not any difference between a black person and a white person. People will also often be hated due to their sexuality or their gender, despite the fact that no one has control over those things. Humanity’s ability to hate others for uncontrollable aspects of who they are is one of its greatest

flaws.
Humans have an overwhelming tendency to make light of topics that should be taken much more seriously.

In Jackson’s story, Tessie shows up late. Upon arrival to the ceremony, she says to her friend, “Clean forgot what day it was” (Jackson 2). The two of them then laughed together, as if someone was not about to be stoned. Everyone in the town takes the lottery very lightly, despite the fact that it is very serious as someone is about to die for no reason. In modern times, people will often have casual conversations about events that could greatly impact their lives. The speak about political topics as though they are nothing, despite the fact that the subject of their conversation could, in the most literal sense, change the world. Other people will even go so far as to turn life shattering events into humorous images called memes. These memes can take a topic from being serious to be a joke in a matter of seconds. If people are unable to take things seriously, the world will never be able to become a better place as they will not care enough to want to do the right

thing.
“The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson, correctly portrays humanity’s flaws. It points out how people will often follow old traditions blindly through its depiction of a the lottery, a tradition followed by the people in the town. Jackson also shows how people are willing to hate others because of factors that cannot not be controlled, such as being gay or, in her story, drawing the paper with the black dot on it. The story also covers how people will often take serious events too lightly as it includes people having casual conversation right before the lottery when they know that someone will soon be stoned to death. People need to open their eyes to the flaws in humanity before those flaws lead to horrible events like those depicted in the lottery. Society needs to change, and only the individuals inside it can bring about that change.