Acceptance In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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“ Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery “ -J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire

The concept of understanding is “ the ability to understand something: comprehension”. To fully accept someone you must understand his or her differences. Yet, humans have struggled with this simple concept for ages. So many authors, philosophers, and leaders/ activist have pressed on this topic. One activist that I want to emphasize on is Barbara Jordan whom said, “We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.” During this section of the year we have read multiple passages, all tying back to the idea of acceptance. Some of these passages …show more content…
Crazy right? Well that is what happens in the passage The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. A village has an annual tradition called the lottery where a citizen is selected by random to be sacrificed for “ better crops in the future season”. This passage relates to the previous quote because one person out of “ about three hundred people” (page 25, Line 7 ) stood up and spoke against this cruel tradition. This one person was then shown as a sign of rebellion thus being a target victim and being rejected. The story was written in 1945 when WW2 ended. Shirley Jackson wrote this story with the intension to symbolize the merciless deaths and torture that the Jews went through and how this could be repeated again in the future. One quote that stood out to me in the text would be “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and the lost the original box, they still remembered the stones “(page 34, Line 310-11). This line highlights the idea that the discrimination and hate of people who are different will be a part of a “ ritual “ that people will always remember like the stones. To conclude the passage the lottery rejects the idea of
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