Naïve

Andrea Basile

            Authors Note: After reading the interesting story “The Lottery”, I made a conclusion that one of the many themes is being naïve. In this piece I will be telling you what I thought of the book and why I choose the theme to be naïve. Please tell me if my ideas are clear and organized.  

            What would your reaction be if you won a lottery? Probably happy or excited…well in this lottery you would be anything but excited. I believe the theme of “The Lottery” by Surley Jackson  is “naïve” for many reasons. One reason is because since these people have been doing a tradition for so long, they lose the knowledge of why there doing it, and they forget the balance of what’s right and wrong. This happens in the story because this community is doing a “lottery” that they have been doing for years, that involves someone getting stoned if you get the black dot in the middle of a scrap of paper. These people don’t even know it wrong to stone someone. To them stoning someone isn’t sad or wrong, it’s just part of tradition. In the story, the “winner” is Tessi. Tessi is a mom.  When she gets picked a man gives Dave, Tessi’s son, pebbles to help with the stoning of his own mother! Normal people would see how twisted this little act was, but to the charters in this story they think of it as normal. They have no idea what they are doing is wrong and cruel. This shows that all these characters are naïve and don’t know what they are doing is not right.