The Lottery

I felt that this story shed light on the dangerous effects of blindly following tradition and not questioning the reasons and implications for practicing a ritual. The weird and mortifying ritual of stoning a random member of the community each year gave for a very interesting and engaging read. 

The community that the story was based around reminded me a lot of the community that we see in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and how when the majority of a community is wrong in its beliefs or assumptions and takes advantage of popular view and tries and controls the public interest. The fact that no member of the community even tries to question or change the tradition of the lottery is a direct stab at people allowing ridiculous traditions to effect their lives on the simple minded basis that it has always been that way. 

The presence of family is interesting in the story. Families are seen grouping together and identifying themselves with one another during the town meeting. It seems that these families have loving relationships with one another and in turn the towns people themselves seem to form a tight knit community. But the second that Tessie is chosen for execution, everyone around her including her family turns on her. I feel that this goes against every image and idea that we have ever learned about our family. We have learned that our parents and brothers and sisters have our best interest at heart and in this story it is obviously not the case. The fact that everyone can so easily accept random selection of death into their lives seems very odd and kept me on edge during my entire reading experience.