Younger
generation should believe in traditional practices.
Tradition can be defined as belief or custom that is inherited from the older
generation of certain group of human. There are millions of traditional
practices from all over the world that differ specific community from another. The short story ‘The
Lottery’ authored by Shirley Jackson, illustrates clearly how strong a group of
people that are living together in a small village cling to their tradition
even though the tradition seems to be ridiculous somehow. The tradition is the
lottery where annually during summer without fail one of the villagers will
have to be sacrificed in order to increase the corn harvests. From the story,
several evidences can be extracted to hold up the fact that younger generation
should believe in traditional practices. Youngsters should believe in
traditional practices because tradition embraces the identity of the community.
It is also important for them to have trust in tradition so that the continuity
of the tradition can be secured and last but not least to strengthen the bonds
amongst them.
The first justification is tradition embraces the identity of the community.
Tradition always comes along with some significant stories behind them that
most of the times give the uniqueness to the community that hold to it. If the
youngsters of the community do not bother to believe in the practices, sooner
or later the tradition will be obsolete and eventually be forgotten. From the
story, referring to the line “there was a story that the present box
had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that
had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a new village
here”, the writer exhibits that the black box that is used for the lottery
has a important story behind it. The present box is not the original box that
was made by the first generation of the village but it was constructed by using
some pieces of the original box. It gives the villagers something to differentiate
them from other communities. Therefore, the younger generation has to believe
in the traditional practices because traditions bring the identity to the
society.
Besides, it is also crucial for the younger generation to believe in traditional
practices so that the continuity of the traditions can be secured. Youngsters
play essential roles in any community as in certain period of time they will be
the leaders. If this group does not believe in the custom, then how would they
keep the originality of the tradition? When the originality is affected, slowly
the belief will be faded away from the community. From the story, Old Man
Warner, the one who is considered as the luckiest one as he survived from the
lottery for seventy seven times, explicitly showed his standpoint that the
tradition should be kept original. He kept voicing out his dissatisfaction
towards the reality that the other villages has given up the ritual. For
instance, when Mr. Adams said, “Some places have already quit lotteries”,
Old Man Warner said “Nothing but trouble in that” in reply. He
even added on “Pack of young fools” portraying how he
regretted the situation. Old Man Warner might appear to be annoying.
Nonetheless in a way he was just trying to keep the originality of the belief
so that the future generation can experience the same thing as their ancestors.
It is undoubted that youngsters should know well their tradition so that it can
be maintained.
In conclusion, it is unmistakable that younger
generation should believe in traditional practices. The relevance are firstly
tradition gives the identity to the community, secondly to ensure the
continuity of the tradition itself and ultimately to strengthen the bonds
amongst the younger generation. Rationally, the government should have taken
the pragmatic steps to conserve the traditions with provided the practices are
not illogically harmful to the citizens.
Last but not least,
traditions are critical for youngsters so that the bonds amongst them can be
strengthened. Younger generation nowadays is living their lives very isolated
from others. One of the major contributors to this problem is the technology
that leads to sedentary lifestyle. On the other hand, traditions are mostly
collective practices, thus it will indirectly require the younger generation to
rub their shoulders. From the story, there are some parts that show the
tradition actually keeps the villagers close to each other like “Soon
the men began to gather, surveying their children, speaking of planting and
rain, tractors and taxes” and “They greeted one another and
exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands”. These two
scenarios are indeed very normal to any tradition. These two situations
actually show that the tradition somehow keep the villagers close together.
Hence younger generation must believe in traditions to strengthen the bonds
amongst them.
THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!!