“The Lottery” Analysis Paragraph

How does the short story address the theme of tradition?

The short story “The Lottery” shows that traditions can be very barbaric, dangerous and

powerful, when it has been a tradition for a very long time. “The Lottery” is a tradition in the

village that takes place every year ecause the town believes that by following tradition, they will

receive lots of crops. At first, we thought everyone wanted to win the lottery, but that was not the

case when Bill Hutchinson was not happy when he had “won” the lottery. As a result of winning,

one of his family members would be stoned to death. It turned out to be his wife. While the men

went to pick the slips of papers, mrs. Adams talked about how the villages up North had quit the

lottery. Old Man Warner objects and thinks the Northern villages are a “Pack of Crazy Fools”

and wants to keep the lottery simply because “There’s always been a lottery.” During the lottery,

the villages would pick slips of paper from a black box. In fact, it had been stained, splintered

and faded so much, that the black box was no longer completely black. Mr. Summers talked

about getting a new black box but it was never done and no one spoke about it. The black box

and the stoning were the only original, traditional items the villagers had left of the tradition.

Therefore, “The Lottery” shows that tradition can be very harmful and controlling to humans.