Shirley Jackson’s comment about modern society in the short story “The Lottery” is a dangerously blind following of tradition which takes away the individual sense of morality. The title itself displays Jackson’s comments, as a “Lottery” is usually associated with winning a grand prize. That is our initial expectation as readers when everyone in town gathers together for this event. Jackson is associating a good thing to hide the bad tradition of the town. The townsfolk think it is crazy to let go of such a violent and wrong tradition because it is tradition, and has always been done. They do not once consider the wrong moral action they are taking by randomly selecting someone to be stoned to death. Jackson shows the extreme influential roots of holding the lottery by having the youngest son of the family participate in the public execution of his mother. There are no questions asked, and the crowd is almost going through the motions, doing this because it has to be done so that they can move on to dinner.
Individual development of ethics, character, and personality has stalled in this town. Looking at history and tradition for all of the answers has led to the acceptance of murdering for no reason, since they do not know why this tradition is done in the first place.
The crowd regard stoning Mrs. Hutchinson almost like finishing a project assigned to them at the last minute so they can get home on time. There was no regard for human life in the crowd, just something they had to do because of tradition.