Traditions and Beliefs in The Lottery Essay

Do Traditions and Beliefs affect Modern Society?

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to win a lottery? What comes to mind? In the fictional story The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, the lottery is something completely different from todays system. In the story, the lottery is used as a selection process for the unfortunate individual that has to be sacrificed for the good of the community. The townspeople draw lots to determine who will be stoned in order to bring ample crop growth to the village. The story shows how traditions and beliefs can affect modern society and how people are willing to make sacrifices for what they believe.

Jacksons short story begins on a beautiful summer day in a small, New England village of nearly 300 citizens. Jackson starts out the story by saying, The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green (1948, para. 1). She draws in the attention of all her readers from the start by painting this as an uplifting story. As the story progresses, it gives insight to what each generation is busy doing as the annual lottery takes place. The kids are gathering pebbles and rocks, the wives are finishing up their daily chores, and the men are talking about planting crops, all while the elders are preparing for the days event. Everyone is going about their day as if it is just an ordinary day. The lottery is an annual, traditional drawing dating back many generations. The drawing is set up to sacrifice one person from the village by stoning them to death. It is held at ten in the morning, between the bank and the post office, and is conducted to ensure that the village people will have a great, crop producing season. Every person from the town has to draw a piece of paper out from a black wooden box. The unfortunate person that ends up with the piece of paper with a black dot on it has to sacrifice their life for the village. This is done by the chosen one being stoned to death by the rest of the village. The story ends with Mrs. Hutchinson pleading for her life as the crowd closes in.

In this fictional short story, it was acceptable to sacrifice a close friend or family member because of the belief that it would ensure an abundant crop season. There are several examples, throughout history, that correlate with the theme of this story and show that people are willing to make sacrifices because of their belief for a greater good. There have been several instances, over the course of American history, in which people have been willing to sacrifice animals or other people because of their beliefs. Just as the people in the story were willing to sacrifice one of their own because they believed it would produce a more fruitful harvesting season; the Caucasian Americans were willing to sacrifice Japanese-Americans integrity because they believed the Japanese-Americans were spies. During World War II, the government was able to persuade the Caucasian Americans into believing that all Japanese-Americans were spies. On February 19th 1942 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under the terms of the Order, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the US were removed from their homes and placed ininternmentcamps (World War Two - Japanese Internment Camps in the USA, 2011). Even though most of the Japanese-Americans were born on United States soil, they were still placed into labor camps where they had no freedom. Many Americans knew that placing these Japanese-Americans into these labor camps were unconstitutional, but not many did anything about it. This relates back to Jacksons story because many of the townspeople did not like the lottery, but no one was willing to do anything about it. Another example takes place in the late 1800s where it was stated that Many white Americans, particularly Northerners, felt that slavery was wicked and violated the ideals of democratic government. However, plantation owners and other supporters of slavery regarded it as natural to the Southern way of life (Alton, 2000, p.1). In the story, there was never a vote to start sacrificing one of their own; it became tradition because they believed it was what they had to do in order to survive as a town. In fact, the tradition of sacrificing for a greater benefit even dates back to Biblical times. The Israelites sacrificed perfect lambs because they believed it would wipe away their sins. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day (Exodus 22:29-30 New International Version). Again, the Israelites did not make the decision to start sacrificing lambs because it was enjoyable; they took on the tradition because they believed it was the only way to be clean and blameless before God. As this shows, the vague line between beliefs and morality has caused controversy for several generations.

As one can see, even though beliefs and traditions can have many positive influences, they can also impair judgment and have negative effects. Many people act based on beliefs, however, that does not always lead to the right or best decision. Throughout history, there have been many examples where society has made poor decisions solely based on the belief of one or more persons. Whereas a lottery typically relates to mostly good things; a winner or something of monetary value, unfortunately, this wasnt one you wanted to win. This clearly shows that people caution on the side of beliefs, even when their traditions may not be just or constitutional.

References

Alton, H.J. (2000). Beginning of Slavery (Ph.D., Chairman, Department of History, Morehouse College). Retrieved from http://franklaughter.tripod.com/cgi-bin/histprof/misc/slavery1.html

World War Two - Japanese Internment Camps in the USA. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/japan_internment_camps.html