A Town Full of Bravery

Author’s Note: This is a theme piece about a story we read in class called ”The Lottery”. It’s about a town full of brave people who each year go through an inhumane version of a lottery.

 

Themes in stories are basically titles that everything follows; it’s like the main concept. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a town that hosts a lottery every year, where the prize is always the same. Death. Yes, death. One man from each family walks up to the stage, grabs a slip, and hopes for the best. If your dad or brother has the “winning” ticket, one member of your family will get stoned to death. Only in this one event, it does not matter your age, gender, or health, if your family gets picked, and then you have the ticket that means a painful death, the whole town will follow through with it. With all this happening, it makes the theme bravery, because it you didn’t have any, there’s no way you could walk to town square with you head held high.

                The first thing that makes the theme of this story bravery is that if you were some kind of coward, it wouldn’t even be possible that you would still be living in that town. If someone was so afraid of choosing that destructive little ticket, they would have moved far away after their first lottery. To be able to walk into town square and stand next to your family and all of your close friends and neighbors, knowing that today, one of them will die you would have to have a lot of courage. There’s no way a cowardly person could just stand there and risk their life, and their family’s.

                Another thing that makes the theme the way it is, is the fact that Tessie spoke up. Back then, women had very little rights, which is why the man of the family chose the ticket. Once Tessie’s family got chosen, she wasn’t just going to stand there and take it. Tessie decided to be brave and speak up, claiming that her husband was not given the same amount of time as everyone else that chose their tickets. Very few woman back then would have the guts to do something even half the courageous.

                In the end, I think it pretty clear, that there was a lot of bravery though out this story. Whether it was the way that every townsperson risked their life, of how a woman finally stood up for herself and her family. Without bravery, there wouldn’t even be “A Lottery” because nobody would have the willingness or courage to join. To be in The Lottery, it takes a lot of bravery and risk taking, but that didn’t stop any of the characters in the story.