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The Blind Followers

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The Blind Followers

In the short story "The Lottery", the author, Shirley Jackson takes the reader to a town where the lottery is not something anyone would want to win. Every 27th of June a small town gathers in their town square and pick pieces of paper, hoping not to get the one piece of paper with a black dot on it. The town has done this ceremony since the town was established. Most of the people have forgotten why they even do this ceremony. The twist with this lottery is that the winner gets stoned to death by the towns people in a sort of ceremonial way. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" raises the issue of following traditions and ceremonies blindly without question. The characters in Jackson's short story are all following this tradition blindly and without question. All the characters form up that morning at the town square, just like Marines being called to formation at the beginning and at the end of the day. Without any hesitation or uncertainty they all come, husbands, wives, children, and the elderly, all show up as if they were all just going to see a show or ride rides at a carnival. Being a town of just over 300, most of the characters know each other and as they begin to arrive women start catching up on the local gossip and the men start to talk about harvest and things that men talk about. When the director of the ceremony arrives and starts to call out names, most of the people are eager in a way and as the names of the head of households are called people in the crowd start to belt out words of encouragement as it this was a lottery the characters would want to win. "They do say that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery" (139), says Mr. Adams to Old Man Warner, two of the characters in the story. Old Man Warner replies, "pack of crazy fools, listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for

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