What Does The Black-Box Symbolize In The Lottery

To most people, traditions are very crucial and should be maintained all the time. However, in the short story, “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, it can be seen that even though traditions are important in many societies, not all traditions should be acceptable. The central idea of this short story is how mindlessly the townspeople are for accepting unreasonable actions as a part of a tradition. This can be seen through the use of symbolism. The black box used for the lottery symbolizes the tradition that the villagers have been following for a long time. According to the text, it states, “Mr.Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition was represented by the black box.”

(Jackson 2). This quote shows how the people of the town view the black bock as a piece of a tradition that was passed down from generation to generation. The townspeople are so devoted to the black box, that they don’t like the sound of changing the box. Keeping the black box as a part of the town’s tradition shows how the townspeople are easy to embrace something not sensible as a tradition. Another example of symbolism being used to demonstrate the corruptness of the townspeople, is through the symbolic representation of the stones. The stones in the story symbolize punishment and death. The text states, “...they still remembered to use stones...The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.” (Jackson 8,9). This quote shows how cruel the townspeople are for throwing stones at an innocent person. The people of the town have been so accustomed to the tradition of throwing stones at the “winner”, that they are at a point of being dispassionate and heartless. The way that everyone takes part in the tradition of throwing stones, displays how the townspeople are performing actions that are not reasonable. It can be seen that the villagers in ,”The Lottery” have lost their ability to make their own choices and decisions and therefore have followed the irrational concepts and actions of the tradition. Eventually , following a thought or an idea with a narrow mind can lead to many problems and violence.