The Lottery Short Story Theme

“The Lottery” is a fictional account of a group of villagers who out of tradition conduct a yearly ceremony to determine at random who among them will be ritually sacrificed. The villagers have come to believe that the continuation of this tradition will result in good fortune, as such every year “The Lottery” is conducted at the end of June in the belief that the success of the corn harvest to follow in the coming weeks will be ensured by their ceremony. With little desire to even make minor changes to their multigenerational tradition, the villagers are all prisoners of their own experience, doomed to repeat the same fateful moments year in and year out. I would recommend that the theme gleaned this story is that we should carefully consider …show more content…
The doctor needing to quickly confirm a diagnosis of diphtheria in order to begin treatment of the child before it 's too late attempts to open the child 's mouth to examine her tonsils. Throughout the story the child refuses to comply, going even so far as to violently resist the doctor 's attempts to diagnose her. In the end taking into account the direness of the situation and the need for prompt treatment combined with his rage at the child 's resistance, the doctor forces a spoon down her throat confirming his suspicions. While perhaps using force to treat a patient in this story was for the “greater good,” I would recommend the theme of this story is that we should not presume that authority is a justification to compel performance from others who otherwise object to the matter at hand. Because from “The Lottery” we should carefully consider the consequences of the blind adherence to tradition, and from “The Use of Force” we should not presume that authority is a justification to compel performance from others who otherwise object to the matter at hand, we should in retrospect carefully consider the tradition of presuming authority is a justification to use …show more content…
In the case of “The Lottery,” we are shown a horrific display of a society extremely adverse to change, a society that has unnecessarily submitted and acquiesced to a corrupted moral authority. Little care for individual rights is found throughout the society described in this piece, as evidenced by the violent public executions carried out at random on a yearly basis. In the case of “The Use of Force” a child with diphtheria is forced into necessary submission. The child 's life being on the line, the doctor had to quickly diagnose and treat her condition lest she die in her bed awaiting urgent medical care. Further, to an extent there was an attention to the individual rights of the child in the form of consent on the part of the parents. The parents being responsible for the child who was refusing medical care gave informed consent in light of the severity of the situation to the doctor on their daughter 's behalf to perform a more invasive, forceful examination. This stands in stark contrast to “The Lottery” where the life and limb of all citizens is put in jeopardy without regard to their individual human rights. Secondly, in the case of “The Lottery” we did encounter a character that questioned the morality of their