In "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson writes in the voice of an objective and dispassionate third-person narrator. The narrator presents the events of the story in a matter-of-fact way, which makes the surprise ending feel especially shocking to the reader. The narrator's judgement of the town's behavior is only implied, so the reader can determine for him or herself that the lottery is regressive and cruel.
By depicting the town's continuation of a primitive ritual in a more modern setting, Jackson suggests that this town, and maybe humanity in general, is prone to cling to traditions simply because they fear or dislike change. There is a sense, in the story, that the lottery is continued and is performed in the way it is simply because that is how things have always been and no one wants to question that. The story suggests that at the core, some parts of...
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human nature are quite barbaric.
The original purpose of the lottery seems to have been to ensure that the crops would grow and the town would have a strong harvest. The lottery is sort of a sacrifice; if one town member is killed each year in the lottery, the town thinks it can secure the prosperity of the rest of the townspeople. The absence of the original account of the ritual may be significant because it doesn't actually matter what an "account" said at one time; the town has simply repeated the same behavior for years and years out of fear. They do not think about why they are doing this or how an outsider might view the town knowing this about it. The town blindly follows and clings to the ritual, which makes its people seem backwards and ultimately cruel, as they turn on each other, even against family, to preserve their rite.