Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Sociology The Lottery and Durkheims ideoloies The Lottery and Durkheims ideoloies In this essay we will take a look at and analyze “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson in stipulations related to Durkheim’s ideologies. I will try to make various links from the story to Durkheim’s functionalism. A few of the points where I will try to make connections are on mechanical society and what kind of suicide is more prevalent with in it, social facts, solidarity, and religion. Social facts are external, and that means that social facts are customs and laws that surround us were already here when we were born and they will be here when we die. Durkheim was very interested in social facts. Durkheim states that social facts are external and constraining and we can see evidence of this it the story, as pointed to in the quote from Old Man Warner, “ There’s always been a lottery,” he said petulantly. “This quote from Old Man Warner tells us that the lottery in itself tells us that this is a social fact. Also the quote in the story, ”The people had done the lottery so many times that they only half listed to the directions…” tells us that The Lottery tradition is a social fact. We can see that these social facts are constraining, and that we choose behavior that conforms to the social facts that surround us. I doubt anyone in the story really wants to take the chance of getting stoned to death, yet everyone does participate in the lottery because of the social facts around him or her, and because of the pressure to conform. Lets take a look at Durkeim’s views on solidarity and how they apply to the story. Solidarity is shown from the disdain that Old Man Warner has for the other communities that do not have a lottery system. When Old Man Warner made the comments: “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back inside caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while. Used to be a say saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’s all be eating chicken weed and acorns.” This gives you an idea who is in and who is out and this is a requirement of solidarity. Next we will take a look at the type of society the one in “The Lottery” is. It does not take long to see this community is a mechanical society. This is due to the fact that there is little division of labor; most of the men are farmers, and there is a high degree of unity. A few people do lightly protest the lottery, but they still participate in the old tradition. This shows the high degree of unity in of the thoughts and actions of the individuals in the mechanical society. Because there is so much agreement in this type of society the stoning of Mrs. Hutchinson is performed swiftly and there is a high cohesion to the rules of the game. The lack of autonomy and choice are readily available in this story of a mechanical society. Taking place in the lottery can be seen, as a type of suicide witch is present in a mechanical society due to the cohesiveness of this type of society. In this short story by Shirley Jackson, we can see many sociological theories pioneered by Emile Durkheim. His sociological theory defiantly helps explain some of the group phenomenon present in this group in the story. This theories help give us much needed insight to help explain the social community in “The Lottery”. Bibliography: Word Count: 610
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