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A Response to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
Real violence and evil can happen anywhere, under any circumstances, even in quiet, remote villages. The mentality of these mobs is to blindly follow tradition without considering the consequences of these traditions. They act in the same way, then they can give up reason and act cruelly, and the true violence and evil are hidden in them. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” encapsulates the concepts and instances surrounding both the fictional and real-life society. It also depicts the dangers of following a culture whilst lacking any valid cause.
Each year, villagers would come together in the town square to perform a reaping – a cultural practice that involves selecting one family from an old box made of wood. The family would then be obliged to draw once more from the box to establish which member of the family will be killed. The author, Shirley Jackson, uses a misleading title that excites readers with a cheery mood at its onset, but as the story goes on, its aftermath is a shocking turn of events. Considering that this book was written at the turn of World War II, the story depicts how human cruelty is widely accepted by society.
Throughout the story, there exists massive prejudice directed specifically toward a much younger generation. This is a surprising twist in the story, keeping in mind it kicked off in a much exciting and cheery manner. From the tradition in the story, it is clear that children aren’t a consideration in case they get picked for murder, as the villagers would still respect the tradition more than life. Furthermore, the younger generation faces a huge backlash for failing to hold onto this tradition firmly, despite the fact that new generations were born thus making the culture misunderstood and less followed. For instance, Old Man Warner attacks the entire village and takes a jab on the younger generation after he gets the information that the villages considered doing away with the culture. He considers them a “Pack of crazy fools,” while attacking the young generation saying, “Listening to the younger folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while…. There’s always been a lottery,” (Jackson 94).”
This scathing attack by Old Man Warner applies in my personal life as I have experienced a similar situation in high school. Although aberrant, it’s considered normal to consider upperclassmen as superior to freshmen in high school, and as a freshman in high school, I often felt intimidated when the former were in my presence since we (freshmen) were considered inferior. For example, during enrollment as freshmen, it was common to hear snide remarks from the upperclassmen. Whenever a freshman walked on the opposite side in hallways, thus disrupting the overall high school traffic, students from senior classes would be irked by this would put the blame on the entire freshman class. This incident is a microcosm of what takes place in Jackson’s book, whereby the younger generation would be blamed for not conforming to the traditions and norms. Also, as I progressed to the latter – being an upperclassman, later on, I’m guilty of always labelling the freshmen as a group whenever I saw a freshman not conforming to my high school’s way of doing things. This attribute is similar to Old Man Warner in “The Lottery” when he labelled the younger generation as one group.
From “The Lottery,” it is evident that the younger generation is marred with hate and criticism whenever a change is suggested, despite the fact that traditions are created to serve all generations. This concept applies to my personal life, specifically, my family. Since I love upholding my family’s tradition, it is usually unacceptable to go against the grain on what belief my entire family upholds. For instance, it is common in my family to have male and female responsibilities – as a male figure. I would be assigned male duties such as making house repairs or taking care of our household items. On the other hand, female figures in my household would always be tasked with handling kitchen duties, such as preparing meals and washing utensils. Whenever I’m asked to prepare the family’s meal, I would feel outraged, especially if my sister is idle and I had some other duty ongoing. Similarly, my sister would be angry if asked to do a male duty such as making house repairs.
Although my family’s tradition is not as dangerous as the one depicted in “The lottery,” there is a striking similarity in the rigidness to making a change in the usual norm. Switching roles in my household would yield to disagreements among family members. This difficulty in accepting changes is dangerous since it holds the entire family or community captive in their tradition. In the book, the villagers are held captive by their dangerous practices to a level where Stockholm syndrome is involved. Stockholm syndrome entails having a psychological alliance with your captor, for example, when domestic violence victims are subjected to physical and psychological violence, they become accustomed to that “norm” to a level whereby they believe they deserve to be in that situation.