In Jackson’s “The Lottery”, she talks about tradition and the power it has over people. She shows us this by normalizing the tradition of the lottery everyone partakes in. To us, normal readers, the whole situation is scary and inhumane, but to the people in the story, people who have been celebrating the tradition for years and years, there’s nothing wrong about it in their eyes. It sheds light on how blindly people will follow something if it’s been practiced for millions of years. There are examples of things that should be forgotten because of changing times, like certain parts of religions that have been widely debated, but many people still choose to follow certain things because it is a part of the religion which is in a way a tradition.
In the short story, there is a part where old man Warner says that he thinks people who stop the tradition are crazy, which leads us to believe that most people have already accepted the lottery and the consequences that go with it without asking if it was worth it, or if there was even any truth to it. It shows that everyone had already made up their mind about the tradition and thought anyone who didn’t oblige was insane.
In conclusion, I think the author was telling us to be more aware of our traditions and how and why we choose to follow them.