The Lottery: A Tale of Conformity and Selfishness

The Lottery Conformity or Pure Selfishness “The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow”-Jim Hightower. Have you ever been in a situation to where you know a person or a group is doing something wrong, but you choose not to do anything about it? Have you ever done something wrong for so long that it suddenly became a lifestyle for you? Jackson’s story, “The Lottery”, when it comes to being in the wrong or not speaking up, reminds me of many situations that I have been in or situations that I have witnessed.

Jackson tries to create multiple thoughts that could go through the readers’ mind. You could think, maybe this event has been around for so long, that it seems normal to the community. You could also think that everyone knows it’s wrong, but is afraid to speak up. In the beginning of the paragraph, I put in a quote about conformity. The quote is saying conformity is a result of a cowardly act. Going with the flow of society when you know it’s wrong is just as bad as not existing in society. “The Lottery” to me is a selfish act by the society.

The beginning of “The Lottery”, Jackson starts out the story by explaining the scenery. She explains where the town is gathering and continues to explain what the people are doing for the lottery draw. She draws you in from the beginning because as you’re reading, the story automatically starts out with a setting and the town taking action for the lottery draw. At this point, the readers don’t know what the purpose for the lottery draw is. Jackson comes in on the first page saying, “They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed”(Jackson 1).

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In the beginning, readers wonder what the stones are for and why they are relevant to the story. I think that is how she really captured the readers, by giving details about the lottery draw and not explaining what it was from the beginning. She gradually leads us to the end of the story when she’s talking about the whole town gathering the stones, and on the very last page, it explains what that the stones are the weapons for the person of the draw. In “The Lottery”, I couldn’t help to think of the movie “The Hunger Games”.

In the movie “The Hunger Games”, each district sacrifices a human to fight for their community. They are very similar but very different stories. To me, this story is about the town sacrificing a human every year for the rest of the town to survive. “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon’”(Jackson 5). The town never realized they were in the wrong and to them; this was a normal thing to do.

Having the lottery draw every year was a way for the town to survive. “The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program…”(Jackson 1). They treated this event as if it were a community tradition. The only one in the story who took a stand was, Mrs. Hutchinson, the one who was chosen from the lottery draw. Jackson makes the people in this town look selfish, in a way. In the beginning of the story, Mrs. Hutchinson was actually late to the lottery draw. She stood there confidently and started to make jokes about the draw.

Once her name was called, she shouted that the drawings are not fair and that we shouldn’t even have a lottery anymore. I think that was a big part in the story. That scene in the story made the readers realize that in this town, people are only looking out for themselves. They will not stand up for something that is wrong, or they will not go out of there way to do what is right unless its to save themselves. Years ago, back in my high school days, I was in a situation where I just sat back and watched something happen, when in the beginning I knew it was wrong.

It was in the middle of our Homecoming week, and during that week the senior girls and the junior girls have a Powderpuff game. During that entire week, the seniors and juniors pull little pranks on each other, for example; toilet papering their houses and making funny chants to each other. My senior year, the entire group of girls decided to do something really mean to one of the girls in the junior class that they didn’t like. Most of us girls thought this was normal for homecoming weekend, because there have been girls in the past who have done much worse.

Our senior girls printed off pictures of this girl and put her face and her body all over the school. At the time, I just stood there and watched in worry. I knew it wasn’t right from the beginning, but I never did anything to stop it because all of my friends were going along it. The townspeople in “The Lottery” just went along with the stoning like it was okay, even though in their minds, they had a feeling it wasn’t okay. In this situation, I was considered a townsperson. I went along with it, knowing it was wrong.

In the end, I think her argument in the story is that she is trying to make us think about our lives now. She wants to know what would we do if this were how society acted now. Would you be a townsperson, or a stone thrower? Would you sacrifice another human to save yourself? “The Lottery”, for me, was a reminder that I need to stand up for what is right and I shouldn’t just follow the crowd. Jackson, S. (1948, June 26). American literature. Retrieved from http://www. americanliterature. com/author/shirley-jackson/short-story/the-lottery

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