Senseless Violence

   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.