The Meaning behind "The Lottery"

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The Lottery
Introduction
The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson one the spring of 1948, details a society that is detached from its basic humanity instincts. In the short story, men in the society are painted as having lost their regard for human life, in a quest to further their needs. This has become one of the most common aspects of the human life. Every so often, there is news of persons who sacrifice the lives of innocent people as they seek to accomplish their wishes (Jackson, 199). Jackson uses the aspect of ritualized murders as a reflection of what was happening in the society. As the society becomes more complacent on the trends of violence and misuse of power, they lose their humanity.
Reflection
A closer look at the lottery reveals the blunt truth about the society and the disregard for life that has developed over the years. Death is taken as the easier option in the face of conflict and self-serving objectives. It is a common practice for a husband to kill his wife and vice versa. What is more worrying is the trend that has taken the society by storm and even acquired a place in the legal systems as it is ritualized using the law. When a wife has conflict with the husband over marital disagreements they can easily kill over the same. Ironically, the court does actually recognize that this killing may have been out of passion, and the sentenced could be reduced. As such, anyone who kills out of rage can now tell the court and jury, that they never intended to kill their victims and it was an emotional complication in the spur of the moment. This is a ritualized form of killing that has gained popularity and is now socially accepted to kill under compromised circumstances that can be taken to be innocent. There are boundaries about a person dying and ritualizing the aspects of death is soiling the very basic elements of humanity.
When Tess Hutchinson, picks the black slip, all the villagers including her own children and husband stone her to death as she protests the barbaric acts. Although this may seem as if it is fictitious, it is a common element in the society which is what the author was drawing attention to in the first place (Jackson, 200). Honor killings are very common in the society parallel to the killing in The Lottery. People only need a flimsy reason to kill one anoth...