“The Lottery” is a short fiction written by Shirley Jackson which was first published on June 16th, 1948 in The New Yorker. The theme of the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is “the danger of blindly following tradition.”
EXPLANATION:
The short story of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a story about how dangerous it is to follow old traditions without knowing the meaning of it. “The Lottery” is a story about villagers in an area who routinely held a lottery ritual. Since the beginning, the ritual seems to be harmless and quaint. The villagers choose a pathetic man to lead the ritual of lottery, while children run to gather stones in the town square. The villagers seem to be blindly accepted the lottery tradition which has allowed a ritual of murdering to become part of the town fabric. Yet, the villagers seem to be powerless to change the tradition.
One character in the story, Old Man Warner, is one of the villagers who hold the tradition. He is so faithful so that he fears that the villagers will be back to the primitive times when they stop to hold the ritual of a lottery. The native people in that village will randomly kill someone when they are told to do so. Yet, they actually don’t have a strong reason why they have to kill someone once they are told to because they believe that it is the tradition.
Due to that lottery tradition, none in that village is safe. Anyone could be the next to be killed by the other villagers. The death of Tessie, one of the characters in “The Lottery” and one of the villagers in that village is the example of how villagers can kill innocent villagers for an unclear reason. The one and the only reason why they persecute others is the lottery tradition.
LEARN MORE:
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:
1.What is the conflict of the short story, "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson?
2.What is the relationship between characters and theme in a text?
KEYWORDS: the theme of the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the theme of “The Lottery”, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the theme of the short story “The Lottery”
Subject: English
Class: 10-12
Sub-chapter: Literature
