"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a short story set in a small town that practices a violent tradition of human sacrifice every year. The tradition is ironically referred to as the lottery wherein the townsfolk randomly draw paper out of a hat and the person that draws the black dot is the person that gets stoned to death. The theme of the story revolves around the strong attachment to tradition and rituals of the people in this town. The people believe that the practice of lottery in the town is part of their history and it's bound to continue forever (Jackson 23). They superstitiously believe that the sacrifice will bring them a bountiful corn harvest. Shirley Jackson was particularly driven to write this literary work by some of the traditions that she experienced in her life that she didn't believe in (Bloom 15). The message of this short story is that violent traditions are way past time and shouldn't be considered morally correct. The author presents the society around this small town as rigid due to the unknown fear and evil of human nature. She presents the very destructive rituals in mankind that the people in this town engage in blindly. Through this story Jackson expresses her perceptions concerning traditional rituals which she considers cruel and unworthy of human observance.
The story of this fictional lottery is a very disturbing and shocking reflection of a violent tradition following society. Jackson reveals two main attitudes that are prevalent in this society; the disturbing tendency of society to identify a scapegoat and the perception that societies are always victims of traditions and rituals that have existed in such communities (Wilson 78). At first, this short story is very worrying especially when compared to today's world. However similar things still happen in communities that still cling to their traditions which have been passed from generation to generation.