Would you believe that there once existed a village where everyone would take part in a terrible event, but would you think it was innocent because of the way they blindly followed a tradition? The short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson communicates this theme by showing how the villagers participate in a lottery every year. In life there are people who follow tradition because they have to, or are used to following it without asking questions. The author, Shirley Jackson, was born December 14, 1916, in San Francisco, California. In 1937, Shirley Jackson attended Syracuse University where she began writing short stories. She was famous for the short story "The Lottery" and her best-selling novel, "The Haunting of Hill House." Shirley Jackson was famous for writing in a supernatural genre. She later married a Jewish man and moved to a conservative neighborhood. He died December 14, 1916 in North Bennington, Vermont. “The Lottery” is a deeply ironic story in which the winners actually lose. The village has its own unique lottery. The winner of the game has a card with a black dot. This means that the surrounding villagers will stone them to death! Shirley Jackson develops the theme of the danger of blindly following tradition in her short story "The Lottery" through the use of symbolism, humor, and irony. The black dot represents the lottery winner. It is an ironic symbol because a normal lottery should express a happy and festive moment. The villager's lottery is the promise of death. “Bill Hutchinson approached his wife and snatched the piece of paper from her hand. It had a black spot on it” (Jackson 3). Bill Hutchinson's wife's traumatic fate for how she didn't want to lose the lottery. “It actually focuses on below… in the middle of the paper… in the past. Works Cited Jackson, Shirley. The lottery. Np: np, 1948. The Lottery (1948). Network. 14 January 2014. . Done 01/23/2005 7:58:04 AM Hicks, Jennifer. "Overview of 'The Lottery'". Short stories for students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 21, 2014Schaub, Danielle. “Shirley Jackson's Use of Symbols in 'The Lottery...'” English Short Story Journal 14 (Spring 1990): 79-86. Rpt. in twentieth-century literary criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. vol. 187. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 21, 2014Understanding lottery symbols. Elton Gahr, January 5, 2012. Web. January 16, 2014. Shirley Jackson. Np, 2009. Web. 28 January. 2014. .