In this short story, tradition blindly pushes villagers to extremes and takes over their morality. The community is blinded by tradition, without realizing how it affects their morals. Mr. Summers, the oldest man in the village who is responsible for the lottery, appeals to people’s fear of ending the tradition. He tries to maintain it. The old man claims that there has always been a lottery and by giving up the lottery the villagers will get in trouble.
(250) Instead of someone winning a conventional prize, the lottery was held to choose who will be chosen to be stone to death. For the villagers the lottery was a long tradition that they were not ready to give up. The names of the character in the story symbolize hints of the character roles and tragic end of the story. Mr. Summer, summer symbolizes maturity and knowledge, owned a coal company with no children, and was
For that reason, the lottery itself represents the uncertain traditions that are inherited and are still in use. The lottery box which had existed since the origin of the lottery symbolizes the faith of the public towards an illogical tradition. As Jackson stated, “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much as the tradition as was represented by the
“The Lottery,” exposes deep truths about cultural traditions. As cultural traditions are passed on from generation to generation, the true meaning often gets lost as time moves on. The townspeople come together once a year, and have the head of household represent each family member to see who will the unlucky name that will be pulled for this ritual. In Jackson’s story, the community’s “black box” where names are pulled from, is never updated (5), and the “chips of wood” replaces “slips of paper” (6). It is evident that the community has no idea why this tradition has continued and what it’s true purpose is.
In "Black Haze," Jones explains that the Dean was the person who makes sure that the pledges are not in danger. The problem with this responsibility is that the Dean is not present for every single event. On top of that, pledging underground has been around for decades, so even when a BGO is offline, there will still be people who want to be in that fraternity or sorority enough to risk the dangers of it. Unless the active members are willing to draw a line somewhere, this plan will never work. There has to be harsher punishment for harsh punishment
This place, this house doesn’t hold good memories for me. Constant order and ruling, my father governing every dimension of my life, until it’s the way he sees fit. In that aspect, leaving the house behind is of no worry to me, but it’s the town itself that I am afraid to leave behind. I am familiar with every inch of this place and I am intrigued by it, even though my father says it’s a ‘dead end town for dead end people’. Saying that before my mother passed would get him nothing but grief from her, but that time has long faded from his memory.
In fact, he may even have had more freedom than what would be considered necessary for psychosocial moratorium, seeing as there is a serious lack of parenting in his life. With that said, the problems in Jack’s life are not due to a lack of psychosocial moratorium, but a lack of supervision and parenting. The book This Boy’s Life follows the lives of Jack (Tobias Wolff) and his mother Rosemary as they travel across the country in search of a new life in the mid 1950s. They eventually settle in the town of Chinook, WA after Jack’s mother remarries, but regrettably her new husband, Dwight, turns out to be an abusive alcoholic. Of the many problems in Jack’s life, this happens to be one he cannot control, but there is an array of others that are completely his own fault.
Specifically, Jackson writes that the villagers recall there was, at one time, “a recital of some sort,” and that “some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse.” (25) These once important procedures were now no more than talk among the villagers, of how the lottery “was originally conducted.” The specific details, lost throughout time, did not prevent the “tradition” from occurring year after year. The villagers reverence toward tradition and fear of the unknown leads them to blindly accept the lottery without question. This blind acceptance allowed a ritual of murder to continue in the village while overlooking the actual history and details. Jackson writes, “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 had been used for generations.” (25) The villagers justify this annual murder by the
When going through a tough loss, the support of your family is much needed. Holden’s parents act as if nothing happened and Allie never existed. They do not know how to deal with the death of their son, which may be of the reasons why Holden hasn’t dealt with Allies death either. Holden want to commit suicide but “Holden suicidal tendencies are held in check by the memory of Allie, Who keeps Holden from destruction as he crosses the city streets” (Trowbridge 27). This illustrates that although Holden is a victim of his memory it can also be a positive
Yet he is always able to do so without having to expose himself to the world. In the events of To Kill a Mockingbird the whole town of Maycomb loses any prior semblance of innocence. In the opening pages of the book Scout describes the town as “an old town” what is written in tradition and life seems predictable and unchanging. The town seems to be far from innocent, but rather a town of hatred and injustice. Amongst all this loss of innocence is the presence of those who stand up for right -