The Lottery Rhetorical Analysis

I believe that the people in the lottery stoned Tesse because of Conformity.Throughout The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, you could clearly tell that something wasn’t right and in the end, something pretty messed up did eventually take place but “why did the people do this?” is the question that many have after finishing the text. Well, The answer is fairly simple and it is Conformity. If you don’t know what Conformity is, The Commonlit staff do a pretty good job of summing it up in the first paragraph of their article about Conformity. They say “Conformity, or acting the way most other people in one’s social group act, often grows out of a person's desire for security and belonging to a group – usually a group of similar age, culture, religion,

I personally believe that Compliance is the type of conformity that was expressed in the Lottery the most because even in the Lottery it gives hints towards this. One of these hints is in paragraph 21 when Mr. Summers and Mr. Adams are talking to each other. Their conversation goes as follows, “ Hi. Steve." Mr. Summers said. and Mr. Adams said. "Hi. Joe." They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly in one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd. where he stood a little apart from his family. not looking down at his hand.” This right here shows that even though these people are clearly unwilling to take the risk of being the next sacrifice, they do it anyway because they don’t want to face the rejection and they don’t want to face the consequences of not doing

Now it definitely wasn’t the most common one found in The Lottery but it was definitely one of the two that were expressed in the Lottery. In paragraph 3 of Conformity, they describe Internalization. They say, “Internalization is when people have actually internalized a group’s belief system and see it as truly their own, both publicly and privately.” This is related to the Lottery because it relates to Old man Warner's actions because he actually thinks that what they are doing is right and he doesn’t want to stop doing this because he truly believes that what he is doing is right. This is shown in paragraph 35 through 42 where Old man Warner and Mr. Adams have a conversation and they say,“ “ Some places have already quit lotteries." Mrs. Adams said. "Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools." "Martin." And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. "Overdyke... Percy." "I wish they'd hurry," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. "I wish they'd hurry." "They're almost through," her son said. "You get ready to run tell Dad," Mrs. Dunbar said. Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, "Warner." "Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. "Seventy-seventh time." These two quotes