"Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done." -"The Lottery"
I try hard each unit to write something more than a hate blog because I feel the author had more in mind than to annoy me with his/her thoughts. I guess I owe it to the story and to him/her to come up with a plausible interpretation that falls within the "cone of meaning." This story sort of tested that conviction, but I do think there are some valid points to be made from the details. The given theme of this particular story was point of view. The point of view differs between age groups in this story, and from these differing ages and corresponding attitudes towards the lottery comes the motivation of the characters. The older people in the story, like Old Man Warner, are stuck in tradition. They don't want to change or, heaven forbid, get rid of the lottery because they feel like it tempers people to the fact that life is full of death. No matter how advanced society gets, they must know that life can't always be rainbows and kittens. This attitude is heavily contrasted with the younger society, who feel like the process may be counterintuitive. They show the lottery can encourage savagery and indifference to violence. Undoubdetly, life today reminds man more constantly of the inevitability of death, even if death and suffering are less prevalent. Just like the rituals dying out and becoing less important, the lottery is losing its meaning and intended purpose.
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