Eddy Learns How to Read

Is the lottery a story about how humans are inherently evil; or is it just a critique of mindless human error (mob mentality)? The renowned philosopher Immanuel Kant once postulated a theory on human nature.  We, as humans, are born inherently evil.  We have violent tendencies and its very core, human nature is selfish.  He goes on to say that we use religion, laws, and order to suppress these evident natures and live a "civil" life.  In The Lottery, it is shown that people have an annual tradition where a "lottery" occurs, and the person who "wins" is stoned to death.  It is a practice that seems almost indubitably (Sam Li told me to use this word to make me sound smart) barbaric by our modern standards.  Of course we could make the argument that I set up, saying that human nature is violent and evil.  However, another possibility exists.  We as humans, don't realize the huge "errors" or mass "evil" we create because of mob menta...

"The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud.  Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience." (Bradbury 324) This sentence reveals the whole background and development of this short story.  Something that was once healthy and living is reduced to a shriveled corpse, unfit for survival.  It is a drastic change that faces the living.  While, it does not directly describe the nuclear war that occurred before the story, it emphasizes the almost lifeless world by describing the only thing living in the story as a dog.  (In this sense, dogs may be lower on the biological hierarchy of life compared to humans.)  In addition, the fact that the dog tracks in mud into the house describes the relationship life has with new technology.  Technological advancement can be correlated to the fall of quality of human life.  (The technology utili...