Shirley Jackson’s essay “Mob Mentality in the Lottery”

Tradition is upheld without question in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” although it’s possible that the residents of the community are unaware of how repugnant their behavior is. This literary work serves as an example of how society may follow tradition blindly, condemning the innocent while also impeding their own progress.

The youngsters are first seen at the start of the short narrative playing like kids would ordinarily, completely absorbed in a big pile of stones. This is the first glimpse into the twisted tale of “The Lottery,” where we learn that winning this so-called “lottery” did not award a pocket full of cash, but rather a meeting with death. The narrator states in the second paragraph, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, choosing the smoothest and roundest stones.” Since they were raised in this way, the town residents consider it ethically acceptable and have even turned it into a game. However, they are destroying their own culture without realizing it. According to D’Ammassa, “the lottery custom dates back to the town’s initial inception, so far back that the original rites that went along with it have been long forgotten, implying that whatever circumstance may have given rise to prior biases no longer applies now.”

“Although the eerie happenings during the lottery ceremony are fascinating in and of themselves, they also serve as representations of more covert, less overt human tendencies. The propensity to get caught up in tradition is one factor. Although no one can recall the lottery’s original purpose, it is still held annually, and no one would dare propose that it be stopped (Locklear). Everything here is connected to the time-specific scenario. The advent of communism presented a new challenge to the United States and the rest of the free world after the conclusion of World War II. The Soviet Union was encroaching on numerous nations in central Europe and expanding into the far east. The Cold War was just beginning in America, and the nation was on high alert for Communist Party sympathizers and invaders. The “Red Scare” was sweeping the country. This danger is represented by Shirley Jackson in “The Lottery.” The residents of the town are ready to give up one of their own every year for the sake of the neighborhood. According to Locklear, this exemplified the communist philosophy that there was no such thing as an individual and that the welfare of the community as a whole came first. Critics respond with a variety of analyses of Jackson’s contemporary horror story, one of the most widely anthologized in literature. Some cite the absurd acceptance of awful customs. Others see the bleak lottery as a statement against sexism, capitalism, the pursuit of wealth, and the victimization of the weaker members of society, including women and children, the homeless and crippled, Jews and Muslims, Gypsies, and people of color. The narrative depicts an impersonal procedure by which a society selects a scapegoat, the culprit of everyone’s faults, according to existential critique (Snodgrass). Using symbolism, this narrative demonstrates to the reader that “what is significant is that the story, in its oddity, has driven generations to question its purpose, contemplate its meaning, and to come up with a wide variety of interpretations of its importance. The Lottery shows us human people caught up in a fatal game, one that replicates the various social rituals that define most of our lives, rather than telling us what to believe (Hobby).

Old Man Warner, who lived through many of them, is the finest source of knowledge on the lottery’s initial intent. Old Man Warner briefly makes a suggestion about the most probable cause of the first lottery. “There used to be a proverb that said, ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ Before you knew it, we were all chowing down on stewed chickweed and acorns. A lottery has always existed, he continued putting. Those words suggest the lottery’s initial goal was a ceremonial sacrifice to ensure greater harvests. If you kill someone with stones, the rain will come. The rains will result in a successful agricultural season (Sciftw).

We also heard about the “black box” that contains the lottery tickets. The black box became shoddier every year; at this time, it was no longer totally black, but had severely split wood along one side, revealing the original wood’s color, and was faded or discolored in other spots (Jackson 2). This is a symbolic example, maybe referencing the custom itself. No one has the courage to replace it since it is outdated and needs to be replaced.