Power of Tradition
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a village hold a lottery on every June 27th to
stone the winning person to death. The whole village attends the lottery except a few who could
not literally participate. Their slips are to be drawn by the family members especially the son if
he is eighteen years old. It is an unwritten norm that everyone should pick a piece of paper from
the black box and nobody questions this. The key point in this story is that this tradition of
stoning one person in the village to death by lottery has existed from the time people could
remember. Though the villagers in “The Lottery” feel nervous about the lottery, they just follow
the tradition without questioning it. They just want to do what is expected of them.
One reason why it appears the villagers are willing participants is because all the villagers
are in the place of the lottery except Mrs. Hutchinson. The children are gathered there and they
