After reading Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery", a view on humanity was opened to me that I never gave too much thought to before. The scheme of the story begins on a June morning in a small town. Every year a traditional lottery takes place that everybody must take part in. One by one all the villagers draw a slip of paper from an old black box that has, so it seemed to everybody, been around for centuries. Everybody seems to take part in the lottery without even knowing why they are doing it. After all the villagers get their turn, everybody opens their slip of paper and determines whose slip has the winning black dot on it. In the story Mrs. Hutchinson draws a slip and complains because she picked the winning one. She repeats over and over that it "isn't fair" and to have a new drawing. The ending of the story comes as a total shock to the reader because the lottery is actually a drawing for a human sacrifice. The winner, or loser in this case, gets stoned to death by rest of the villagers as an offering for better crops. Jackson uses this story as a reflection of our human society. It shows us how people can blindly follow their traditions without knowing why and also shows us that we must stand up and face our consequences no matter how harsh they are going to be.
             The major lesson to be learned in "The Lottery" is a saying: "Tradition is the guide of the ignorant." The whole act of the lottery itself shows us how people can blindly follow a tradition without even knowing the origin of it. To the villagers it becomes too hard to change their traditional ways even though it has no place in their society anymore. Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, remarks in the story that "Lottery in June corn be heavy soon," which shows us the ignorance of the town's people as they won't let go of the old traditions. The statement also relates to how some cultures today carry on "blind" tradition that don't hold a place i...