The Lottery

I shall now use math to settle the debate on probability that arose in class today. The issue was brought up that the people who drew first obviously would have a better chance of surviving, as they are drawing from a larger pool. This idea of course comes from the classic draw-a-card-and-don't-replace-it-in-the-deck probability problem that we have all enjoyed in our high school math classes. You draw a card, and it's a heart. If you do not replace the card, what is the probability of drawing another heart? This problem does not apply to the situation at all. The case of the Lottery is more applicable to this scenario. I draw a card. I do not look at the card. I draw a second card. I do not look at the card. What is the probability that either card is the three of diamonds? Both cards have an even chance, one out of fifty-two, of being the three of diamonds. Because the people in the story do not look at their slips of paper until the very end, the probability is constant throughout the drawing. If they had replaced the black dot system with a deck of cards, and there were 52 families, even though everyone draws and does not replace, every family would have an equal probability of drawing the three of diamonds. This is completely irrelevant, but it was bugging me.

My logic is sound.

Ahem. Enough math. Question 4: what is the significance of the fact that the original box has been lost and many parts of the ritual have been forgotten? Can I find a statement in the story that most likely explains the original purpose of the ritual? Darn Tootin' I can.

The town has pretty much forgotten what this tradition is about. All of the traditional aspects of the process have been forgotten. The original box is long gone and replaced, the villagers write on slips of paper rather than woodchips, but most importantly of all, the original purpose of the lottery has been forgotten. Only Old Man Warner (Warnah) makes reference to the beginnings of the ritual on page 268: "Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' " It appears that the lottery first began as a process of selecting a victim for what appears to be a human tribal sacrifice in order to ensure a bountiful harvest. But it appears that many many years have passed on, and the focus on the funeral is not to make the corn heavy, but rather to simply follow through with the old tradition. The loss of the original box and rituals shows the degeneration from purposeful, while barbaric, to merely following tradition for the sake of tradition.

Christmas trees were originally dedicated to Odin and were decorated with the carcasses of nine animals. Merry Christmas.