The Lottery

The Color of Death

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the black box and the black spot on the piece of paper represent death. The villagers in the town hold onto an old tradition of using a black box to chose which one of them will die on Lottery day. In Jackson’s, “The Lottery,” the color of the box symbolizes death, death of a community that has chosen not to change from old traditions. An old tradition of death although they are changing for other villages are held onto by this town Although as the author stated “the feelings of liberty sat uneasily on most of them.”(Jackson 1214.)

The black box has been around for a long time. The people in the town never discuss it they just put it away until the time of the lottery. The tradition of the lottery is so old that even the box has become fragile and has had a change in appearance. Although it is fragile they refuse to make new one. “One of the characters the lottery conductor talked of making a new one, “Mr Summers spoke frequently to villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.”(Jackson 1214.) The even use pieces of the former black box to make the one that is being used at the lottery that day.

Due to most of the wood chip used by former generations for the drawing on the day of lottery not being enough , the characters utilize paper and a black spot which the color black symbolize the continued tradition of the black box although “much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded”stated by the author(Jackson 1215.) they still held on to that color which represents the mark of dark death and the black box being the casket where it is held until that unfortunate villager will pick it.

Although the character Ms. Hutchinson had soon up late the day of the lottery, she somehow ended being the chosen one for death. She stated” clean forgot what day it was.”(Jackson 1215.) Would she live if only she would have stayed home? Perhaps...