Tradition

Author's note: I am writing this short response on what I think is the main theme of The Lottery Shirley Jackson.

In the short story, The Lottery, there was a main theme that stood out the most. The main theme would have to be tradition. I would say tradition because in the story the lottery(what they call their yearly "killing") happens every June 27th. People back then would call this entertaining, but it would not be fun if the person you loved would be standing there getting rocks thrown at them. I would probably cry. Although the title might through your off, you would never think that the lottery would mean killing people.

When we think of the lottery, we think of money, but this is not their kind of lottery. What they call the lottery, is what we would never do in our society. It would be cruel to think that every year someone's name would get called and they would get killed. In this case the women got stoned.  It is a tradition for this village to pull a families last name and then pick a family member. That is not what we call "normal". I think that since the people living there are afraid of the government, none of them would have the courage to leave. The government was so strong about this tradition, that everyone felt like they should be dedicated to the lottery. Even though someone has to die.

In conclusion, tradition is very important to this story. If their was no government, there probably would be no tradition. Reading this made me think about how the societies are different now then what they used to be.