... will be sacrificed. The head of each household is called up to draw a random slip of paper out of an old black box. Once each head has been called and someone draws a black dot on their paper, their entire family redraws. Tess of the Hutchinson family wins the final draw and protests about ... newer alternatives. The narrator states "because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that have been used for generations" (Jackson 626). Mr. Summers is able to change certain rules and poli...

• Word Count: 1719
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... or challenge the tradition of the lottery. What change there is to the lottery seems to be minimal, and Jackson uses the slips of paper to symbolize that change itself without serious critical thinking is just as damaging as no change at all.The change from the chips of wood to ... more easily into the black box" (566). Nothing significant in the tradition itself has been changed, so when Mrs. Hutchinson "snatched a paper out and held it behind her," (572), that paper with a "black spot on it" (572) seals her fate as much as a chip of wood would have done. The fact ... that she draws a s...

• Word Count: 874
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the barriers of tradition. To illustrate, the women in the town are of unequal status compared to the men in the society. They are not allowed to select a slip of paper themselves and if their husbands are injured or deceased it is necessary to send their oldest son to choose, "Wife draws for her husband. Don't you have a grown boy ... ...

• Word Count: 1232
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... 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 ... ...

• Word Count: 1254
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate