Research question: What is the deeper meaning of the black goat and the black box in the story, and to what extent does it reflect on themes of tradition, violence and conformity in society?
Shirley Jackson’s renowned short story “The Lottery” has the village’s yearly lottery rituals that create incredible tension and fear before finally unveiling the terrible violence and human sacrifice that take place later on. This story is all about the symbolism of the black box, which is the device used for the lottery draw. Although at first, the black box seems harmless, it eventually turns into a metaphor for the lottery itself – a rite of barbaric origin that is reproduced despite its wickedness, partly due to some form of inertia and cowardly refusal to quit it. With symbolism and allegory, Jackson proves that one should come apart from stereotypes and look at what is really hazardous and what is just skin-deep in a civilized society.
In my opinion, the moment when the black box is brought on stage at the beginning of the play is climactic because it is described as “…as it had been for as long as anyone could remember” (Jackson 292). This suggests that tradition is described as something that is both long-lasting and yet arbitrary – it lasts only because it always was, not through any considerate use of contemporary reasonings. The object’s inadequate condition, which is no longer like the perfect box in the past, suggests that the ritual, an old tradition, is living its last phase. However, people remain steadfast in following custom, and their disordered box becomes the only container available, and they do not even think to question its origin or suitability. The literature critic Hakaraia observed this by saying that the stained box and the decaying slip are used as symbols which could mean that imperfect, imperfect tools have been allowed to be authorities. The reverence for this malfunctioned, deformed casket is the actualization of how outdated and barbaric traditions can become revered and elevated to an authoritative status.
The lottery box manifests itself as a sharp and quite difficult-to-interpret symbol that depicts the cycles of violence that may be inherited when traditions are blindly followed. The disintegrated box serves just as an optical illusion of diplexity and ordering like the annual general procedure of execution in the village by the public during the yearly public event (Hakaraia). The idea that there can be a thin line between the pretence of civilization and the inherent animalistic side is a manifestation of the warning the author is trying to convey about the dangers of conformity without a genuine inner truth. The box has a dissimulative face that could be used to cover up the deed veiled, out of view of conscious minds. He tries to make this claim as he says, “the boxes… cover up the fact that everyone is a crisis’s helper, not just the perpetrator” (Jackson 119). Through sending the message by removing violent details behind the ways actions are, Jackson recommends that conformity leads to repeating the acts through ignoring reality and mythologizing the murderous events.
The gloomy background of the name of the lottery box only magnifies the power of the tradition, which covertly will go ahead to continue the cycle of oppression and barbaric cruelty even in a so-called progressive modern society; for example, it is said that there is nothing more proper except trouble these days, with people desiring to do away with the lottery….Previously, people used to put it this way, it was like ‘Lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon’. Before very long, we will all be going hungry” (Hakaraia). The span of Warner’s willful ignorance and complete detachment from the matters of moral reason and rationality is exemplified by his vague superstition and blind faith in age-old traditions fading away. The box itself proves to be a mysterious memorial of a past with its forbidding blackness and case-like exterior, portraying a darker, unknown background. According to Hakaraia, Teresa, “The lottery is more like a fossilized, significantly simplified version of some ancient pagan ritual…so that whatever once was life is now lifeless, an empty shell” (Jackson 47). Jackson leaves the lottery’s cruel origins unfathomed in the calculated lack of any explanation. After this, it is just for readers to think about all these traditions and customs, which are full of injustice and are based on the mere excuse of “the usual way we always did it” and “that is the tradition.”
In the end, thus, through the central symbol of the decomposing black box, Shirley Jackson criticizes the obedient attitude of a congregation to solemn rituals and traditions above everything else, including moral issues and improvements. The black box is an image of socially accepted corruption, a force to overpower non-conformists’ and protestors’ objections. The idea of the arbitrariness of the lottery is in no way comparable to the degree of injustice with which the lottery is conducted, and it explores the surprising distance that can develop between tradition and morality when the ritual practices remain unexamined. Jackson, by this, brings the modern-day atrocities to mind and shows that such events mostly get covered up and blamed through arbitrary and unjustified customs and traditions. Through her narration of a civilized village in a state of full ritual of slaughter, she portrays a warning address to humanity as to how the habits established by ancestors, no matter how much deeper they go in deviating from the ethical base, continue to attract living people.
Works Cited
Hakaraia, Teresa. “Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery,’and William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity.” Humanities 8.3 (2019): 137. Accessed from https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/8/3/137/pdf
Jackson, S. (1948). The lottery. Avon.Accessed from https://www.guthrieps.net/vimages/shared/vnews/stories/5e8238bb10ba4/4-27%20-%205-1.pdf
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