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Barbarity Of Human Nature In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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Barbarity Of Human Nature In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
One of the major themes of Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is the barbarity of human nature. The story depicts a seemingly average American town, where the people willingly participate in an annual tradition of killing one of their own. The person is chosen randomly by a lottery, which gives the people enough humanity to continue on with the ritual.
However, the people of the town are not happy about their duty, as they see it. “There's always been a lottery,” they say, and they believe this means there always should be. They encourage each other, not for the killing, but for finishing it so they can get on with their lives. They mostly believe in what they're doing, if only because that's just the way life is.
In the same way, things we
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