What is the importance of the "scapegoat" in the lottery?
The idea of having a scapegoat provides the village with a tradition that allows them an outlet for placing blame upon someone and for enacting violence without guilt.
The concept of the scapegoat is an ancient one. In the Old Testament of the Bible (Leviticus: 16), a scapegoat was an actual goat that was sent into the wilderness carrying the sins of the people symbolically laid upon it by the Jewish chief priest. Another goat was sacrificed as a sin offering. Similarly, in Jackson's "The Lottery," a scapegoat is found on which to blame the ills of the community—originally, it seems, so that crops would grow and be plentiful.
In the performance of this fertility custom, the members of the community stone to death one person selected at random as both a sacrifice and as the scapegoat that carries upon it the bad luck that might come to destroy the crops. While the story's scenario is extreme, the message of "The Lottery" is, indeed, pertinent to modern society, particularly concerning the human desire to blame someone for one's misfortunes or mistakes. Lenemaja Friedman writes in her book Shirley Jackson that, in addition to the desire to blame others,"First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns"—
...the lottery may be symbolic of any of many social ills that humanity blindly perpetuates.
What is the importance of the "scapegoat" in the lottery?
The scapegoat, a person who is punished for the sins of others, plays a thematic role in the development of the story. Tessie Hutchison becomes the sacrificial victim in the lottery. Ironically, she contributes to her own fate when she insists that the lottery was not conducted fairly when her own husband holds the "winning" ticket. By offering her own daughter and husband to be included in the lottery to increase the odds that her husband will not again pick the marked ticket, Tessie is offering up another scapegoat. In the end, she is the one stoned for the sins of the village. Some critics view Jackson's selection of a female victim in the story as an indictment of patriarchial society in which women are often the scapegoats.
Why does the village in "The Lottery" need a scapegoat?
I think the village still needs a scapegoat because they are keeping up old and archaic traditions for the sake of tradition. The story hints at an original reason for the lottery. Mr. Adams is talking to Old Man Warner about other villages starting to give up the tradition of the lottery. Old Man Warner scoffs at the idea, saying he thinks those other villages are full of crazy fools. Old Man Warner then mentions a little phrase about the possible origins of the lottery: "Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.'"
It seems the original lottery needed a sacrificial scapegoat in order to secure better crops. A person would be sacrificed and killed by a public stoning. The people probably believed this led to a good rainy season, which would lead to a good crop harvest in the fall.
Based on my understanding of the story, Old Man Warner is the only person who still remembers that phrase. That tells me the stated purpose of the lottery is not for securing better crops. The people need a scapegoat because that's all they remember needing.
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