The lottery is collective murder because everyone in the town acts as a mob, choosing one person at random to kill a year.
There is no one person who is the evil genius at work in this village. No serial killer is preying on these poor people. They consent to the entire thing. The people of this village are so beholden to tradition that it is stronger than both human dignity and common sense. They value tradition over life.
The lottery is a fundamental part of the fabric of village life. Consider Old Man Warner’s response to the rumor that nearby villages are discontinuing their lottery.
Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. …. There's always been a lottery…
He never gives a reason why there should be a lottery, or the purpose for it. He never questions the killing. He just says that there has always been a lottery, and that means there should always be one.
The town is even afraid to replace the black box and the three-legged stool. Everything must remain exactly the same. Even when Tessie’s name is called, the complaints she makes are not that the lottery is wrong, but that the process was somehow unfair this time.
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly. Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"
Tessie is told to be a “good sport.” If that isn’t crazy enough, they even give her very young son pebbles to throw at her so he can take part in the public stoning of his mother. No one avoids the lottery. Both the very young and the very old participate and no one asks questions. That is state-sanctioned collective murder for no reason at all.
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