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Conformity In Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

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The famous civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemy but the silence of our friends.” This seems very relevant to what our society has been in the past as well as how it is in the present. As history depicts, conformity has allowed many actions and events that would be frowned upon, with very few challenging, condemning, or actively speaking out against it. For example, take a look at the many genocides that have been allowed to occur. When a person or group of authority establishes an idea, very seldom do people challenge to defy or deter.
Literature, which lives forever as a critique of our past mistakes and errors, reveals the negative consequences of our conforming …show more content…
The story starts out with seemingly innocent everyday people who live in a bucolic countryside, but is later revealed that they participate their long tradition of “the lottery” in which the winner is stoned to death for good harvest. The monstrous power of conformity is evident in the story in that there are many instances where people resist change and are intolerant to any acts of change. For example, Old Man Warner, who has been a long inhabitant of the town and has participated in the lottery for a long time, stands as an authoritative person whom people follow due to his elderliness. When the Adams, one of the town families, told Old Man Warner about other towns nearby giving up on lottery, he responded, “‘Pack of crazy fools…Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them’”(104), reprimanding their actions. He then went on to say an old saying: Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon, to remind the Adams how important “the lottery” had been for their harvest. But hypocritically, Mr.Adams, who told Old Man Warner about the news about other towns giving up the lottery, acting as a small voice of reason, but is then later found being in front of the crowd to stone Tessie Hutchinson, the winner. Though the people showed uneasy motions and gestures, they are quickly lost, failing to resist the dangerous tradition of “the

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