The Significance Of Changes In The Lottery

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Even with a stickler over tradition around, the story plot shows that things would change with time. Mr. Summers used paper slips to draw instead of wood chips. His excuse for the change was the increase in population and lack of space in the black box for “all those wood chips.” Therefore, they did modernize part of the tradition; they just did not question the meaning and modernize it in the more significant areas.
At one time, cutting out some of the ritual and some comments made to Tessie suggest that meanings change with different time periods. They had cut out the “recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people.” Also, the comments made to Tessie suggest that the lottery is a game that must be played every June. They will not allow ...

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