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Lauren Davis
Mr. Thompson
English 1302.10
October 12, 2016
Societies
Societies are different across the globe and there are some that seem similar to one
another, but looks can be deceiving. Even a seemingly peaceful society can be more different
than one might think. In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson there is a small community of more
than three hundred people (Jackson 257). At first the village appears to be gathering for some
harmless annual tradition, however the reader soon learns that this tradition is not harmless at all.
The society in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is quite different from ours in many ways, such as
our morality, our traditions, and our social normalcy.
The morality in the society in The Lottery is quite different from our own. In The Lottery
the citizens of the town had a lottery to determine who would be chosen to be sacrificed to
ensure a good harvest (Jackson 259). The chosen person would be stoned to death by the entire
community, including their family and friends (259). The person who was chosen to be the
sacrifice had done nothing wrong. She had not committed any crime that the reader is aware of,
and yet the instant that everyone realizes that she had drawn the black spot everyone turns on
her (259). Her friends, husband, and even her children participate in stoning her (259). Even her
youngest child, Davy, who is so young that he has to be helped through the whole process by an
adult, is given a few pebbles to throw at his mother (259). In our society a person is not
sacrificed to ensure a successful harvest. Only if a person has committed a horrific crime are they
put to death. They are given a trial and, even if convicted,they are given time to appeal the

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decision to a higher court, in hopes of getting the sentence overturned. In some places they do
not even execute criminals anymore, they are kept in prison for life, and if someone is sentenced
to death they are not stoned to death, they are given a lethal injection. In our society, it is not
considered moral to kill someone who has not done anything wrong, and we especially do not
make the family and friends of the person participate in the execution of their loved one, which is
a tradition most people to day would agree on.
Traditions are a part of any society. Overtime parts of a tradition can fade away or be
replaced by something new, but on the whole the reason and history behind the tradition is
present. In The Lottery they have a tradition that they carry out every June, which is the lottey
itself. This tradition is supposed to ensure that the crops are plentiful, they even have a saying
which is Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon (257). The whole town will gather and participate
in this tradition that has gone on so long that they do not remember how it had started, why it
started, or the exact rituals that were originally involved. The only thing that the people
remember for sure is that this tradition is supposed to make the crops grow. Normally in a society
if a tradition loses much of its meaning then it will be discarded. One tradition that has been
discarded in our society is woman that are supposed to have long hair and men are supposed to
have short hair. Now a days there are woman with buzzed cut hair and men with hair to well past
their waists. These are also the social normalsies which have changed for our scociety.
The social normalcies in The Lottery are different as well. The practice of the lottery has
become so engrained in their culture that the idea of not having one is strange to the people. Old
Man Warner says that if there was not a lottery then they would go back to living in caves, and
that nobody would work any more (257). Old man warner attributes not having a lottery with
regressing. The tradition is so common place that even the box that is used in the lottery is

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treated like a common everyday item. The box gets moved from one place to another one time
it was put in a barn, another time it was underfoot at the post office and sometimes it was
placed on a shelf in a grocery store and left their like it was just another item in the shop,
until it is time for the lottery and it is taken out to be used (257).
In conclusion, The society in The Lottery is different from ours today in regards to their
morality, their traditions, and the social normalcy. The morality of the people in The Lottery
differs from ours because of the way the reasons they kill people and how they kill their people.
Their traditions are different as well due to their belief of stoning people to make crops grow.
The social normalcies are different from ours as well. They believe it is normal and even right to
kill someone every year to ensure a successful harvest. These characteristics show how much our
societies are different, and these are pretty big differences.

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Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and
Writing. By X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 13th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
36-40. Print.