Shirley Jackson Blindly Following Tradition

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Following Tradition As Mark Twain once said, “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” The purpose of the lottery in the village, is to blindly follow tradition. They only change parts of their ritual and they trust Old Man Warner because he is the oldest person on the village. They also do not think about the killing the people they care about. “The Lottery,” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, that shows a village that is stuck blindly following tradition. The people of this village were blindly following tradition because they changed some parts of their ritual, but not others. They want to switch out the black box, but do not. Also, they did change from the drawing chips made of wood to using paper slips. The only reason they do this, is because it is more …show more content…
Old Man Warner says that people who do not do the lottery, are going backwards. He also believes that the other towns will not succeed in stopping the lottery. This is shown when he says “There’s always been a lottery,”(Jackson 22) which shows Old Man Warner believes that the lottery is a tradition that should not stop. This is another reason for why I think that the villagers were blindly following …show more content…
In the story, Mrs. Delacroix kills her best friend,(Tessie) and someone also gives Davy, Tessie’s son a few stones to kill her. This is shown by the quote “...someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles,”(Jackson 28) which shows that they are not thinking much about telling the children to kill people that they care about. This is my final reason for why they are blindly following tradition by doing the lottery, because of this the lottery, they were not thinking about what will

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