ry takes place. The only explanation the townspeople are given for doing the lottery every year is the mere fact that if they kill a person every year, their corn crops will be heavy. Their ignorance to the fact that a good crop of corn is based upon more than the sacrifice of a human being is what drives them to continue this meaningless tradition. Not knowing any better and having this senseless tradition pounded in your head year after year only adds to the ignorance of the townspeople.Another factor in the ongoing tradition of the lottery is the fact that even though the townspeople have no idea why they are performing the lottery in the first place, they still instill the lottery values on the little children of the town. Mrs. Jackson tells an example of this, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys” (233).The little boys in the story don’t really know why they are gathering the stones, just that they will be using it to throw at someone later on in the day. The little boys don’t even know the meaning behind the stones and the lottery, they just know that it’s fun and they get to play with the other boys in the neighborhood. The ignorance of the parents is passed down to the children through this sick and cruel ritual that they perform. Even Tessie Hutchinson’s little boy is involved in the stoning of his own mother, but because Sunakoda 4he doesn’t know better he thinks that this is normal. This is shown by this quote from Mrs. Jackson, “The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles” (238). By han...
