early lottery to decide who survives, and who doesnt. Its definitely a risk. And Old Man Warner has run this risk for seventy-six years. Its very similar to those guys you see that have jumped out of a plane over a hundred times. People love to take risks. Jackson uses him to show the logical side to keeping the Lottery. She feels that it is a natural phenomenon, that people seek thrills, and that there is nothing wrong with that, and displays that through Warner.They do say, Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him that over in the North Village theyre talking of Giving up the Lottery.Pack of crazy fools, he said. Listening to the young folks, nothings good enough for them. Next thing you know, theyll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. Theres always been a lottery.This last passage exemplifies another belief of Old Man Warner. He completely doesnt trust young people. He believes that everything they do is radical and thoughtless, and they do things too easily. This is an example of your typical gender gap. But in this one, you dont have your children saying, You just dont understand. You have your elders being the ones not understood. In the passage above, Old Man Warner is trying to convey the message that life is fine how it is. Why go and ruin a good thing? And people misconstrue that as an insult to their intelligence. All through his life, Old Man Warner has learned to accept life as it is, the status quo, and expect it to not change as long as hes around. As it is with our own generation, each new generation has bigger and better ideas for the world, and the elders feel threatened by this. Warner represents those who wish to keep the status quo, who feel that nothing is wrong with the present, so why try something new and possibly throw a wrench into the gears of pleasant life...
