In the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson tells us the story of a town that what it seems to be just another normal day in a regular town. She sets the scene by talking about kids getting out of school and getting ready to start the summer. She lets us know that today is the lottery, but we do not yet know what that means. Jackson tells us that kids are picking up stones and heading to the square to meet up with their parents. It is important to acknowledge the fact that when we think of the word lottery, we think of it always being positive. Whether it being a substantial amount of money, or winning a prize, the outcome is always in your favor. But in this lottery is not like ours. As you continue to read, you find out that this lottery is not like ours. The town then picks a name out of a box. Whatever that family name is, they then selected one name from the family, then everyone in the town turned to that person. You know realize why the kids collected the stones and brought them to the town square. This adds the twist to the sense of the word lottery, because it gives us a different sense of the lottery. In this town, the last thing you want to be is the winner of the lottery, because of what happens. Once the winner of the lottery is decided, the people throw stones at whatever name was chosen. This shows us that other societies may not have the same ideas as us. Two important concepts that we see in the story are blind obedience and betrayal. It is important that we realize both of these concepts because they both play an important role in understanding the story. It shows the dangers of blindly following a leader, and also how betrayal comes in many different forms. But these concepts are not just present in this story; they are present in our world history. We have seen many occurrences of both blind leadership and betrayal, and these instances just back up what we have read about in The Lottery. We see both of these concepts in real life experiences. There are not just some made up ideas for entertainment. Throughout history, we have seen multiple occurrences of both of these concepts, and people need to realize that. These affect the everyday person, and that is why it is so important to see why both blind obedience and betrayal can have an impact on us. 

When we think of the term “obedience”, most of the time people think of following the rules. A dog listening to its owner, or people of a town or country following the law. And this is important because it keeps society running smoothly, and provides assurance that you will stay safe. But obedience is only good to a fault. Once you start listening to everything your told without question, obedience becomes dangerous. At this point it is not obedience, but it is blind obedience. Blind obedience is defined as “the unquestioned adherence to imprecise rules, even in the face of silly or adverse consequences.” In layman terms, it is following somebody else’s leadership without thinking about the outcome. Blind obedience is a dangerous game to play, because the consequences could be detrimental to not only your person, but to society as well. It can harm people, just as it did in The Lottery. In this short story, the people of the town took part in this lottery, where the town leaders pick one person from one family, and throw stones at them. This unquestioned following of a leader proves to be dangerous because the people of this town killed one of their own, just because someone told them they had to. If this took place in today’s society, it would be looked at with such outrage, and something would be done to prevent it from happening again. But we have seen examples of blind obedience. One example of this is was the mass suicide constructed by Jim Jones. Jim Jones was the founder of the People’s Temple, which was a cult in the back in the early part of the 1960’s into the 70’s. His belief was that socialism was this “cure all” to everyone’s problems. The cult originated in Indiana, but he would eventually take his followers to Guyana in South Africa. And people followed him, even when it went too far. He got some of his people to assassinate U.S congressman Leo Ryan, but it did not stop there. On November 18, 1978, Jones convinced 918 of his followers to take a poison called cyanide, and they all killed themselves. In an essay written by George Russell, he breaks down what went into these people following Jones and believing in him. Russell says “It is closer to the truth to say that Jones was a self-selected Kim Jong-Il – a narcissistic psychopath who created a totalitarian slave-labor camp in the name of anti-imperialism and rejection of “fascist” America.” Russell is saying how Jones appointed himself to this leadership role in the cult, and believed that he needed to do this because America was fascist, and he had the answer to fix it. This concept of blind obedience is clear here, because these people did not know what his plans were. They did not know that he would end up convincing all of them to poison themselves. In Russell’s essay, he points out the fact that besides for all of Jones’ followers, there were also bones of babies found at the site of the massacre. So these people did not only kill themselves, but he convinced them to kill their children as well. So how the suicides of The People’s Temple relate to The Lottery is that this concept of blind obedience is not a fictional story told for the enjoyment of the readers. We have seen several cases of people blindly following a leader, because they do not have anyone else to turn to. They think that this person in charge is their savior, and he is the “cure-all” to their problems. And it is not just in Jim Jones that we see this concept of blind obedience. One of the most prominent examples in our history is Germany in the early 1930’s into the mid 1940’s, with the rise of Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, as most people know, became the head of the German government post World War I. In this time, the country of Germany was in shambles. Their money was almost worthless, and people were using it as wallpaper and even eating it because it was worth next to nothing. The people did not trust the government, and the country was just overall a mess. And Hitler took advantage of this situation, and used it as his rise to power. He was appointed as Chancellor, and soon made a turn for the worse in this country. He began using many different kinds of people, but centered in on Jewish people, as a scapegoat for all of Germany’s problems. And he got all the German people to get behind him. They started to believe what he was saying, because there was nobody else to turn to. They started to get behind him and actually thought that Jewish people were the reason that their country was starting to fall apart. The German people only knew Hitler as a famous war hero, so they trusted him. The blindly got behind this man who got put in this leadership position, and it clearly did not pay off. He began to get corrupt with power and that is what led to conquest to basically take over Europe. In an essay written by George Mastroianni, he talks about how obedience, not only from the German civilians but also from the German soldiers, was the key for Hitler during the Holocaust. They never questioned him in carrying out his orders, even if it meant killing millions of people. And that is the reason Mastroianni brings up when talking about the trials for German officers. Mastroianni talks about how in many of these trials, the German officers tried to use the excuse that they were just obeying their superiors when carrying out the orders. While by no means if this an excuse for what happened, it brings us back to the point of blind obedience. The officers no doubt knew that what they were doing was inhumane and wrong, but they were just following their orders, without thinking of the consequences that could ensue. Just like with Jim Jones’ followers, the people of Germany blindly followed Adolf Hitler in his rise to power. And just like in The Lottery, unquestioned leadership led to severe consequences. The reason that blind obedience is such an important concept is because there have been multiple examples throughout history where blind obedience has led to disastrous results. People need to realize how important blind obedience is because the same thing can happen today in society. Someone could rise to power in one country or another, and if people believe in this person, they will follow. The blind obedience in The Lottery is the same as the real life examples. The people of the town knew exactly what the lottery was and what was going to happen, and just went with it. This kind of unquestionable authority is what makes blind obedience so dangerous to us.  

Another important concept that we see in The Lottery is betrayal. Betrayal is going back on your word, and breaking any sort of agreement two parties had. Betrayal has made its way in history countless times. It does not necessarily have to be on a large scale either. Betrayal can be seen in everyday life, between friends and family, and the impact it can have on relationships is enormous. It can ruin relationships, and we have seen it happen throughout history. One prime example of betrayal is the death of Julius Caesar. Caesar was the ancient dictator of the Roman Empire. He was loved by most of the common people, but other members of the government believed that he was getting too much power. They thought that he was going to become a king, and that is what they wanted to avoid. So they took matters into their own hands, and they assassinated Julius Caesar. The other members of government believed that Caesar was getting them further of their goal of having a democracy. In a paper written by Bernard Dobski, he claims that the murder of Julius Caesar was “arguably the most significant political murder in the life of the West over the last two millennia.” Dobski believes that the murder of Caesar influenced many other assassinations throughout history, including Abraham Lincoln. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, said “sic semper tyrannis”, which means “Thus always end to tyrants.” Dobski says that Booth had the same idea as Brutus and the other government workers had, when they thought that their leader was getting too much power. While this betrayal was a man to another man, we see betrayal in The Lottery too. We see family betraying other family members just because that is what their society tells them to do. The Lottery shows us that in some places, the rules of society and government come before family. And in some countries that remains true. People would rather betray their own family and kill them rather than defying orders from a superior. But betrayal does not always have to be killing some else. In the case of Robert Hanssen, he was a man betraying is country. Robert Hanssen was an employee for the FBI. After only three years of working, he approached the Soviet Union, the United States’ biggest enemy at the time, and offered them U.S intelligence in exchange for money. He offered them a list of U.S spies who were working in the Soviet Union, and also a list of people that the U.S government suspected as being spies. A paper written by Rebecca Vogel, she explains the reasoning of why Hanssen might betray his country like he did. One reason she points out is his financial struggle. This is one that is fairly obvious, but important to point out because it is most likely the main reason. In addition to that, she tells us that Hanssen also may have committed treason because of his low self-esteem. She explains that he may have felt the need to prove himself to his family and his peers. Self-esteem is cannot be measured, but it is almost as important as the monetary reward. People care about themselves tremendously, and if you can increase your self-esteem, people will go to great lengths to achieve this. So after all these reasons, we see that there are various reasons for committing betrayal. From own personal gain, to monetary rewards, to a boost in self-esteem, we see that betrayal is a common theme in history. For some, it does not take much to betray the ones you love, or the country you are in. So when we see the concept of betrayal in The Lottery, people should not think that this is some foreign idea that will never happen to you. They were willing to stone a member of their family because they are told to do so. Killing your own family member is about as severe betrayal as you can get. Those are the people that raised you or grew up with you, and they are the ones you love. Every day family, friends, co-workers, and classmates will betray each other in one way or another. After seeing that there are real life situations of betrayal, it makes The Lottery seem much more realistic. Although it is a fictional short story, we see that a situation like the one in the story can occur. That is why we must learn from these historical occurrences and find ways to prevent them from happening again. 

In the short story The Lottery, we see author Shirley Jackson focus on the concepts of blind obedience and betrayal to tell the story of a town and it’s so called “lottery”. These concepts are so important to both the story and the reader because it gives a sense of realism to the story. We have seen multiple times throughout history where both blond obedience and betrayal have made certain events turn into some of the most well-known occurrences our world has ever seen. It is so important that we understand both of these concepts, because of the impact they have on the short story. By using both of these, Jackson makes it so we the readers can relate to the story, and that leaves a greater impact on us. By using the historical examples such as the murder of Julius Caesar or Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, The Lottery does not seem so fiction after all. Now why that is important is because in today’s society, we can easily see a case of blind obedience or betrayal. In another country, maybe not ours, but somewhere else a man or woman could potentially gain a group of followers and if they believe in their leader, will do whatever they are told. As for betrayal, you can betray your younger brother by taking money from his piggy bank. It could be as small as that, or it could be on a much larger scale, such as someone committing treason to their country. Whatever the case may be, we can very easily see that these concepts are very realistic, and this adds to the authenticity of the story. And that is what Jackson wanted to illustrate in the story. She wanted to make us think that this story is some out of this world idea that could never happen to us. But after breaking down her concepts that she uses in the story, we see that these concepts of blind obedience and betrayal are very real. If we do not be careful, both of these could be dangerous to not only us as individuals, but could leave a lasting negative impact on the world. 