Tradition in Everyday Use and The Lottery Essay

There are many things that people do every day without questioning why they do them. These are our habits and traditions, and though for the most part they are unimportant they can be a crucial part of our culture and our interactions with each other. Sometimes there are traditions that can cause harm or are morally unacceptable. What should be done in this case? Edmund Burke, a nineteenth century politician and author, argues that it is best to stick with tradition rather than causing dramatic changes in people’s behavior. This is a key component in his argument against the French Revolution in his essay “Reflections on the Revolution in France.” In this essay he argues that the revolution will only lead the

Tradition is an answer to how peoples live their lives. For many it is a social norm, how they have lived culturally for several generations. Despite the significance of tradition in many societies, it’ can still be very harmful to the people involved. Tradition doesn’t necessarily have to have a positive feature for many folks. In the end tradition could cause more harm than it is meant for good. Thus it is really important to change traditional values of communities to improve the quality of life for many people. In the short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Tellez tradition can be shown to be very submissive, that is stopping people from making any changes in ending harmful traditional

     "The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box." (Jackson, The Granta... page 63) They are all afraid of getting chosen for the lottery and so instead of standing up for one another and stopping the lottery they just go along with it. At one moment they're laughing together and the next they're stoning one of them to death. The lottery is a symbol of how fear is taught and handed down from generation to generation. People can't stand up to tradition, they're afraid of change. They are afraid to band together and change. No one wants to be the one stoned, but they will stone the one picked.

Shirley Jackson also utilizes literary devices to good effect in “The Lottery,” especially that of symbolism. By keeping the setting devoid of any identifying details, Jackson frees the reader to imagine that it could be any place. The only constraints that the author places on her readers’ creativity are that the town is decidedly rural, perhaps narrowing the critique to the cultural scene most frequently associated with small town America. Other symbols include the box from which the lottery slips are drawn (an old and black object which heralds death), stoning as a method of execution (a particularly old and excruciating way to kill someone), and ritual itself (a series of often ill contemplated actions for which one needs no particular reason to follow). All of these, with their marked reference to age, clearly refer to tradition.

Traditions are often established to repair or reconcile a perceived problem in society, at the cost of violating one’s rights. In both “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, traditions suppress the freedom of an individual or group by extensively restricting their rights or causing noticeable anguish in the community. The effects of these traditional practices cripple society, by either demeaning the value of one’s life, or refraining the development of a group. “The Lottery” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, showcase how traditions legitimize unjust and inhumane treatments to others, through the illusion of those practices being beneficial to the greater population.

Americans day after day live much of their lives following time-honored traditions that are passed down from one generation to another. From simple everyday cooking and raising children, to holidays and other family rituals, tradition plays a significant role on how they go by there everyday lives. In Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," the citizens of a small farming town follow one such tradition. A point is made regarding human nature in relation to tradition. The story begins on a beautiful summer afternoon. The town's citizens are eager, gathering in the town square in order to take part in the yearly lottery. With the story focused around one particular family, the Hutchinsons, who

Shirley Jackson's story, The Lottery is about a group of towns people who meet every year on the 27th of June. On this day a stoning takes place, as it washes away the sins of everyone that lived in the village. However, should the tradition of the stoning be changed when it becomes your time?

In The Lottery a dystopian story by, Shirley Jackson the town gathers to participate in the annual lottery. Although, this lottery is very different. Everyone draws a slip of paper from the black box. The person who picks the paper with the black dot is sacrificed. Then they are killed by being stoned to death. Some neighboring towns want to give up the ritual and some have already, but Old Man Warner thinks it is necessary in order to have a plentiful year for growing crops. Throughout the story, Shirley Jackson shows that people need to be more open to change especially when their beliefs are harmful.

In Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery," what appears to be an ordinary day in a small town takes an evil turn when a woman is stoned to death after "winning" the town lottery. The lottery in this story reflects an old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order to encourage the growth of crops. But this story is not about the past, for through the actions of the town, Jackson shows us many of the social ills that exist in our own lives.

There are many Americans and people all over the world that live their lives following traditions that are passed down from one generation to another. A tradition can be as simple as cooking a recipe to how you raise your children and holiday traditions. Culture plays a significant role in how people live their day to day lives. In Shirley Jacksons “The Lottery” the people that lived in the town follow a tradition every year. It's easy to understand why Shirley Jackson’s Lottery caused controversy when it was published shortly after World War II in 1948. The Lottery has been dramatized, televised and turned into a ballet. It is taught in high schools and colleges. (Whittier). The Lottery held many questions about traditions that have

Society today sees the lottery as an easy way to win a ginormous amount of cash just by buying a little slip of paper with a combination of numbers. The irony that Shirley Jackson uses in her short story, The Lottery, is used to the extreme by not only the title being ironic, but also within the story. The lottery is seen as a way to gain cash, but the ironic part of the title is that the reader sees it and thinks that the story will be about someone winning a big prize, yet the winner is sentenced to being stoned to death. Within the story, Shirley Jackson writes about how one member of the community ultimately chooses who wins the lottery. Another ironic thing about someone chooses the winner is that one of the communities sons picked his own father to win the lottery. Linda Wagner-Martin analyzes The Lottery and its irony by writing, “Bringing in the small children as she does, from early in the story (they are gathering stones, piling them up where they will be handy, and participating in the ritual as if it were a kind of play), creates a poignance not only for the death of Tessie the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to the youngest Hutchinson, little Dave. Having the child draw his own slip of paper from the box reinforces the normality of the occasion, and thereby adds to Jackson's irony. It is family members, women and children, and fellow residents who are being killed through this orderly, ritualized process. As Jackson herself once wrote, "I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's

In “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker uses characterization to demonstrate that everyone’s perception of heritage is based on their personal experiences in life. In the story, one of Mama’s children, Dee comes back for a visit at their family farm, only to come back completely different. Upon her arrival, she uses African greetings, wears African clothes and accessories, and changes her name to Wangero, an African name. During Wangero’s stay, she constantly talks about items around the house and asks to have them. While looking through a chest at Mama’s bed, Wangero finds quilts handmade by her grandmother. Upon this discovery, Wangero immediately asks to have the quilts, despite the quilts belonging to Maggie, her sister. Wangero believes that

Settings conveying the themes and effects of the short stories: “Everyday Use” and “The Lottery”

The story The Lottery is trying to tell its readers that there are a lot of brutal violent acts that are done to one another and how it's labeled as necessary for tradition or some other radical idea. Shirley Jackson also emphasizes humans aggressive nature. The people in this story had carried out a group murder to one unsuspecting victim in order to have a better harvest. It really gave some insight of some actually practiced traditions that made people reflect off what they have done and decided that if it’s right. This would be a reason why they would bring up the end of an unruly practice.

Tradition; it is the back bone of every culture and civilization. It is what keeps the beliefs, philosophies, and activities of societies alive, to be passed down from generation to generation. However not all traditions are practiced with pure intentions.  Some activities become so routine, people don’t know a life outside of them. Societies become so accustomed to “tradition” that they will participate in pastimes without  questioning the ethics or morals of the situation. Ultimately when tradition takes the place of a rationalizing mind the outcome can be incredibly dangerous. The role of tradition is an underlying theme in the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, forcing readers to ask themselves “At what point do