The Lottery vs State of Grace Essay -- essays research papers

Shirley Jacksons "The Lottery" talks or so a community of interests that follows a customs duty. Every year the people take every whizs name, put it in a black box, and pick the name of a person. This person they stone to death. Their movement range from an idea that having the lottery makes them civilized to an idea that the lottery makes for trustworthy crops. The author suggests that the real reason is societys need for a victim.When talking about communities that have given up the tradition of choosing one person to stone to death, "Old Man Warner snorted, Pack of crazy fools he said. Listening to the novel folks, nothings good enough for them. Next thing you know, theyll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, travel that way for a while. Used to be a saying about "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon."" (Jackson, The Granta... Page 66) This tradition causes the people of the town to destroy each other instead of working tog ether to destroy the tradition.     As Tessie Hutchinson is getting stoned, mortal from her community puts a stone in her sons hand. Even the closest family member participates in the horror. "The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davey Hutchinson a few pebbles." (Jackson, The Granta... page 62-63) This action shows how tradition is organism passed on literally from hand to hand. This stoning is the way that the people of the community act out their fear of being ...