There are rituals that we practice year after year, but forget where they came from. Sometimes we continue to practice these rituals even after we have lost the meaning of why they are practiced. In the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the practice of a yearly ritual changes the lives of all the people who participate. Jackson’s story reveals a horrific ritual in which one person is sacrificed by being stoned to death in order to have a better crop season. Jackson uses symbolic objects to represent the villagers’ closed-minded beliefs and their acceptance of rituals. The controlling symbol in the story is a black wooden box. The box symbolizes death, and it holds the fate of one person within it. Even though, “the black box grew shabbier each year ... no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained” (75). With time, the original meaning of the tradition had faded just as the box had. Even though the meaning had faded, when Mr. Adams hinted at stopping the lottery by saying, “over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery,” Old Man Warner called them a “pack of crazy fools” (77). He also said, “They’re listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them,” and “There’s always been a lottery” (77). Soon afterward Mrs. Adams said, “Some places have already quit lotteries” (77). Old man Warner replied, “Nothing but trouble in that,” and “Pack of young fools” (77). Insinuating that only young people wanted to do away with the lottery. It seems as though Old Man Warner is responsible for keeping the lottery going. Although the use of “slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations” (75). The villagers did not substitute the ritual for...
