"Everyday Use" and “The Lottery”: The Curse of Tradition

Tradition is defined as “the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction” by Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Traditions are actions continued for generations, normally done to connect to the past or be reminded of one’s heritage. The short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker both have the theme of tradition but explore them in different ways. Jackson explores this theme in her story by presenting a story of an outdated and brutal tradition that is upheld because that is what has always been done. While Shirley explores the theme using factual history to illustrate overcoming a past but not forgetting it. Both present cases of tradition being honored and carried on, but they don’t quite agree that caring on with these traditions is a good thing. 

Tradition That Has Always Been Followed: Analysis of 'The Lottery'

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is about a tradition that takes place every year on June 27th in a small town. This tradition is a lottery or a drawing of sorts that ends up in murder but is said to be done to ensure a prosperous harvest. The way the tradition is told to us as readers, it seems to be extremely outdated and results in ridicule if questioned. The drawing happened out of a decrepit box. Jackson describes that the box “grew shabbier and shabbier each year; by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained”. This box is the symbol of the tradition and was the main part of it. It was the main instrument used in carrying out the tradition. The box is not in the best shape, but that is just how it was. If someone tried to bring up the subject of replacing it, they would be shut down or ignored. There was not a person in town who thought the changing of the ritual embodied by this “black box” was a good idea. This practice meant a lot to the people but had become something unneeded and outdated. The people would say “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. They used to believe that the lottery was imperative to bringing about a prosperous crop. It was such a normal activity that when the oldest man in town Old Man Warner finds out that other towns that had participated in the lottery have now stopped, he calls them a “pack of crazy fools”. The lottery was simply a game of chance that ended in death rather than a full crop. The ritual did not help anything at all, it hurt the population as well as the people, yet no one questioned it. The woman chosen by the lottery was named Tessie Hutchinson. After she is chosen and as the ritual happens, she says “’It isn't fair,’” then Jackson writes about what happens during the ritual. “A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, ‘Come on, come on, everyone'. The reader can infer that this killed Tessie and that everyone in town participated in killing her. It was an evil ritual yet was done every year because they had grown accustomed to it and accepted it as right. They had to have known that murdering a member of your group was not something “right” to do. But no one questioned it because it was tradition.

'Everyday Use' by Alice Walker: Analysis of Honoring the Tradition

While “The Lottery” focused on the practicing of a brutal and outdated tradition, the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker focuses on the remembering and honoring of tradition. Walker writes a story about a black family in the 1970’s that consists of a mother and two daughters. The 1970’s was a rough time for the black community because segregation had just ended yet they were still being discriminated against. They did not have the same opportunities as white people and did not have the same respect. This story takes place during the black power movement and recounts how the eldest sister Dee, is affected by it. The mother, who is referred to as mama, is a large and rugged woman who raised her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. Maggie was the younger one and was in a terrible fire that left her disfigured while her sister was beautiful and personable. Dee leaves for college, that her whole community helped pay for, and is shy to ever visit home again. Dee “will never bring her friends” to her mother’s house because she seems to be ashamed of where she comes from. Eventually she visits her mother’s home and brings a great deal of surprises with her. She brings a man with her named Asalmalakim and had changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Dee says that she changed her name because she “couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppressed [her]”. But when she asked her mother where her name comes from, she learns that she was named after her aunt who was named after her mother who was named after another family member and so on. The name meant a lot to the family, yet she changed her name to connect with a different heritage. Dee wanted to connect herself with a forgotten and ancient heritage rather than be a link for her family. She no longer has a name connected with her family but has a name that is connected to slavery. This was not the only instance where Dee or “Wangero” had disregarded living her family’s heritage and instead looked at it from the outside. The end the of the story is about Dee wanting two quilts from her mother’s house but her mother had promised them to her sister Maggie. The quilts had been sewn by Grandma Dee and was made up of scraps of cloth from different parts of her life. These quilts were made of history and were made with hard work and love. Maggie wanted them because she associated them with happy memories and with family. Maggie was very connected with these quilts because “it was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself”. Maggie did not get to go to college. What she got to do with her life was learn from her family and carry on these practices. She would also use them as they were meant to be used. Dee on the other hand wanted to display them, like they were art not pieces of her family. Dee was able to get out and get a higher education. She was able to make something of her self and yet she took that for granted. She wanted to focus on how “her people” were oppressed but not truly apricate what her family had done to help her overcome that oppression. In the end Maggie gets the quilts and is truly happy. Dee ends up upset yet takes everything that her family counts as tradition for granted and disrespects it while Maggie upholds it and lives it daily. Comment by madi brown: For example, this sentence does not flow very well. Please use suggestion to read sentences out loud in order to hear how the sentence flows into the other.

Alice Walker in 'Everuday Use' essay story shows that the tradition that Maggie upholds is both time honored and helpful. Maggie upholds the tradition of quilting which links her to their family and honors them. This is opposed to the tradition that is upheld in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. This tradition of choosing one person at random to kill, is malevolent and outdated. Tradition is something that should be honored for generations and should be a way to remember the past, but it should not be taken as absolute truth. Maggie does not live the exact same way as her grandmother did, yet she honors how she lived by carrying on select traditions. Opposed to the towns people in “the Lottery”. The tradition connects them to their past because it is something that had been done for generations. But this tradition is something they accepted as right because it had been continued not because they had believed in it. They did not do it to honor or remember the past, they did it because it was comfortable.

Conclusion

Both “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker have the theme of tradition but explore them in different ways. Jackson warns the reader that while tradition can be good, if it is blindly followed for the sake of being followed, it can end in horror. While Walker tells a story of an ungrateful girl who takes her family’s traditions for granted yet accepts traditions that are outdated and had already been stopped. Tradition connects us to our family and reminds of where we come from but that does not mean that everything in our family’s past was the right thing to do.

Works Cited

• Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing, edited by Laurie Kriszner and Stephen Mandell, 9th ed., Cengage Learning, 2017, 419-425
• Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing, edited by Laurie Kriszner and Stephen Mandell, 9th ed., Cengage Learning, 2017, 427-433
• “Tradition.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition.