Literary analysis

Student’s Name
Instructor’s Name
Course
Date
Literary Analysis
Sometimes it can be surprising how we cannot foresee the future. Sometimes we can have a glowing present, but we can never know what awaits us in the future. “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson is a short story that explains accurate reflection of societal issues. It focuses on defining the uncertainty and fear of what awaits the people in the future. The novel began by describing a group of children enjoying themselves, with the town celebrating the summer season by collecting stones and rocks. Mr. Summers who is acting as the organizer of town’s activities set up a wooden box that had the names of all the families of the city written on it. The author gives a picture of families gathering to write their names on the wooden box that Mr. Summers set up. However, the story focuses on one family, the Hutchinson’s family. Shock ensued during the game when Mrs. Hutchison drew a doted paper while other families drew plain papers. The families already understood the purpose of the game/lottery. The surprising end of the story is sad as other families, and even Hutchison’s family members throw rocks at Tessie until they ensure she is dead. The people in this town surprisingly value the tradition of playing lottery than life.
Mr. Summers is the character who makes lottery a tradition in the town. Something that started as a contest during the summer became a town event. The lottery that only began as a simple contest ended to be a norm.

The whole town conformed to the new tradition and participated in collecting rocks and stones even though they knew the potential use of the objects. The story begins to explain the dark side of the norm when Mrs. Hutchinson draws the wrong paper and people start stoning her. She becomes the first martyr of the game. The dark side of the society is evident when the narrator says, “The children had readied themselves with stone. Someone even gave young Davy Hutchinson a few stones” (Jackson 7). The author uses the story to explain how tradition can have unexpected results in the society.
An unconditional following of tradition are usually detrimental to the people themselves. The people of the town knew Terry Hutchison very well, and the narrator expresses a jovial Terry having a humorous conversation with some of them. However, when she “loses” the lottery, the same people stone her to death. Tradition brings out the irony in the story because Davy Hutchinson does not consider that Terry is her mother and that if she dies, he will become an orphan. The author also uses “Old Man Warner” to express the reader’s opinion on the tradition of the people. The reader would use ethics and reason to argue that the action against Terry was wrong. Old Man Warner who has experience in the lottery says, “It’s not the way it was played before.” (Jackson 6). In this statement, the character lays bare the dissatisfaction with the way people fail in their ability to use their emotions as traditions have overpowered the society. Tradition subjugated the people of the town in the story as they lost their ability to feel sympathetic towards Tessie. Today, people copy trends; we do things because others do the same. When some people started posting nude photos on social media platforms, almost everybody else followed suit. The society does not feel empathy towards young children who are brought up in such a community.
Just like the society today where people are not able to break from trends that form tradition, Jackson expresses the people of the town’s inability to break free from their tradition. The lottery started as an event that brought people together at the beginning of the summer season. However, norms gain their power over time and through generations. The town strengthened the lottery by the two factors and made it a tradition. Therefore, the people of the city will not have the option of abandoning what other people had done in the past. Davy Hutchinson who represents the future already participated in stoning her mother. The society will convince him that it was the right thing to do. Nobody can expect him to change in the future. Jackson also explains that people realize that a particular tradition is wrong when they are faced with it and are likely to suffer for it. Tessie complained when she realized it was her husband, Bill Hutchinson’s turn to draw. She moans, “Bill wasn’t given enough time to take a paper of his choice” (Jackson 5). Therefore, it is clear that people would only decide to question the morality of a norm/tradition when they face it.
“The Lottery” is just an example of how the society can make something reasonable even when it has moral questions. The challenge of creating a practice a tradition is that breaking away from it will not be easy. However, if people insist on some immoral norms in the society, they should be expectant of the unexpected results. Defying tradition can make us unique sometimes.
Work Cited
Jackson, Shirley. The lottery and other stories. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005,
www.sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf