Sacrifice In The Lottery

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If there are no farmers to tend the crops in the end, then the lottery to boost the harvest season is worthless. In a small village on a clear and sunny day, an unusual draw is held: one in which nobody wants to win. The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is written about sacrificing a member of the village to receive a heavy harvest that season. It is said that “human sacrifice is not just… designed to appease the gods… or bring luck and prosperity” (Parker-Pearson, 2011, p. 4, P. 6). The article “The Practice of Human Sacrifice” reads about different methods and beliefs that are the reasons behind human sacrifices in various cultures. The value of ritualistic sacrifice as entertainment and why it is still around that is written about in “The Practice of Human Sacrifice” is displayed in “The Lottery.” …show more content…
In Roman Evidence, Diodorus Siculus said that the Gauls kill a man with a stab wound right above the midriff spilling all of the blood on the ground; they then proceed to foretell the future from his limbs and how his blood had poured (Parker-Pearson, 2011, p. 2, P. 1). Therefore, the Gauls are theoretically able to see the future after a human sacrifice. The same could be said about the village in the story “The Lottery.” After the unfortunate person is stoned to death, the harvest season is rumoured to become gracious. Both the Romans, and citizens of the village end up transforming sacrifice into a game. The Romans, eventually participating in “gladiatorial games [where] feeding people to lions were [a] regular sport” (Parker-Pearson, 2011, p. 2, P. 2). The village people converting sacrifice into an event of gambling through lives. Ending both societies with less people but a moment of entertainment. Leaders, whether of a culture or a mass of land, used to exchange human life like it was renewable or for a greater cause (Parker-Pearson, 2011, p. 4, P.

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