The Lottery: relevance to today

Recently, my class has gone through the story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. I will now discuss the story's relevance to today.

Link to "The Lottery"-http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

1) How is the story relevant to today?

Today, many people are selfish, self-centered and cruel to others, They do not care whether other people get hurt(physically or psychologically) or not, as long as they themselves don't get hurt. The villagers in the village stone Tessie Hutchinson for no apparent reason, only because she got a ticket. They killed her because they are not the ones to get killed. "Nancy and Bill. Jr. opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads." Even Tessie Hutchinson herself only showed anger and horror when she was chosen to be stoned. ""It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her."
Another reason might be that the villagers follow a particular leader, i.e Old Man Warner. They only conduct the lottery because it is an ancient tradition, even if they did not know what that tradition was! Mr. Adams states that villages have quit the lottery out of fear of being chosen. He however, was rebuffed by Old Man Warner, saying that there is no good in doing that. Mr. Adams then stopped talking about it, in other words, accepting it.

2) Do we have our own form of 'lottery' as in the story?

Yes we do. Society always finds a scapegoat to blame for its own mistakes. For example, in a very minor case, Student A steals Student B's wallet but blames innocent Student C for doing it. Student A knows its wrong but does it anyway for fear of getting reprimanded. Here the lottery comes in. Student A chooses someone to blame for his own mistakes and stays safe while Student C probably gets punished. In fact, even Mrs. Hutchinson displays this trait. ""You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"" From blaming George Bush for the Iraq War and Hitler for WWII to choosing our small scapegoats for our petty thefts or just plain lying to get around our mistakes, "The Lottery" is present in our everyday lives.