75). He appears to be bored and put out with the whole event. Another good example of his attitude is when he says soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with so's we can go back to work"(Jackson 76). This illustrates Mr. Summers' lack of empathy for his fellow townspeople, whose fate is in his hands. Ironically his assistants name is Mr. Graves, which isn't meaningful until the end. Mr. Summers is what you would call the devil in disguise, a cold heartless killer.Old Man Warner's character represents the stubborn, closed minded, old traditional way of thinking that applauds this mindless ritual. In reference to the comment made about places up north giving up the lottery he remarks, "Pack of crazy foolslistening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them." His justification is, "There's always been a lottery"(Jackson 77). He has been involved in the lottery for 77 years, which has conditioned him to believe that they are doing the right thing. As discussed in class, the theme to this story can be expressed within a quote, "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones"(Jackson 79). The tradition and its function had been forgotten yet these people still killed one of their friends every summer. Shirley Jackson symbolically paints us an unsettling portrait of the loss of human decency that results when seemingly civilized people ignorantly conform to the masses....
