Get creative! Design a film poster for the lottery! Think about the key themes and try to include them in your poster. Prepare to explain why you designed the poster the way you did. Key Themes 1. The danger of blindly following traditions, ideas, laws and practices. The villagers continue the lottery year after year because, as one of the villagers would say, “We have always had a lottery as far back as I can remember. I see no reason to end it." Put another way, this theme says: “We’ve always done it this way. Why change now?" Even though the tradition includes the killing of a member of their society, the villagers do not really question it. Shirley Jackson uses the story to show how dangerous it can be to blindly follow the crowd. 2. Violence and “mob mentality” Violence is a major theme in "The Lottery." While the stoning is a cruel and brutal act, Jackson increases its emotional impact by setting the story in a seemingly civilized and peaceful society. This suggests that horrifying acts of violence can take place anywhere at anytime, and they can be commItted by the most ordinary people. Jackson also addresses the psychology behind mass cruelty by presenting a community whose citizens refuse to stand as individuals and oppose the lottery and who instead unquestioningly take part in the killing of an innocent and accepted member of their village with no apparent grief or remorse. 3. Finding a scapegoat (Sündenbock) In Jackson's "The Lottery," a scapegoat is found on which to blame the ills of the community— originally, it seems, so that crops would grow and the harvest would be good so people had enough to eat throughout the year. The traditional saying is "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon," a saying repeated by Old Man Warner. He says that the consequence of ending the lottery would be a bad harvest – and therefore not enough food for all the villagers. In the performance of the lottery, the members of the community stone to death one person selected at random as both a sacrifice and as the scapegoat, to avoid the bad luck that might come to destroy the crops.
