What comes to mind when you think of
lotteries? Does money, happiness or fortune? Well the lottery in the short
story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is not something you want to
win. This lottery was different from the
others, the winner of the lottery doesn't get money and happiness, the winner
gets stoned to death against his or her will.
The lottery begins with each man in
each family throughout the entire community, must
pick a piece of paper out of a big black box.
The man with the black circle on their paper is the one who won the
lottery. Next, the winning man must bring his entire family up to the black box
and each family member must pick a
lottery ticket from another box. Who ever got the black dot out of the family,
is the winner of the whole lottery. This lucky winner is forced to get stoned
by the entire community. Once the winner I dead, the lottery ends and the big
black box is put away until next time.
This makes the theme for the short
story senseless violence. That is because there in no point of reason for the
winner of the lottery to have to die, they just do it because the instructor
(Mr. Summers) tells them that’s what has to happen. Mr. Summers claims that " ..it is what
keeps our community civilized", however many civilians disagree. Mr.
Walters (a civilian) stated that no other communities do this anymore and how
he wasn't sure if their community still should. Mr. Summers came back saying
how it is a tradition and is something that must be continued. Although, many civilians disagree and don't want to continue the violent tradition that tears their community apart. That is why the main theme of the story, "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, is senseless violence.
