Thus, two ancient rituals are combined: the notion of banishing evils via a sacrificial victim, and the idea of appeasing higher powers in some way to ensure fertility for the land.
In this town, the scapegoat is used to banish the evils of the society so that the crops will flourish. Tessie Hutchinson is the scapegoat in her town in the year in which “The Lottery” takes place the implication in the story is that the lottery is an annual event. This shows how this small town tradition was hurting her mental health by making her lose it moments before her death after “a stone hit her on the side of the head”. The victim of the lottery that year was Tessie Hutchinson, once they found out it was her she started going crazy and kept yelling that it wasn’t fair. This stoning tradition harmed the mental health of the prey by killing them and the predators by knowing that they had to murder a fellow friend or neighbor, but they still continued this insane tradition, some were even proud to have been part of this tradition that they referred to as the lottery. The tradition that this little small town had been doing for over 70 years was a yearly stoning every 27th of June. In the short story Jacksons tradition can be harmful to multiple people. The upfront tone of the story helps show how any traditions can be dangerous and can hurt a person in many different ways.
The Jewish people in Old Testament times conducted the ritual by designating a goat as the recipient of all sins and evil, then turning the goat out into the desert hence, in Western literature, the term “scapegoat” has been widely adopted to designate this sacrificial victim.
This death or banishment suggested that the evils of the past had been expurgated, allowing for a better future for the group.
Ancient civilizations often conducted a ceremony in which the evils of an entire society were symbolically transferred to one member of the group, either human or animal, and that member was killed or banished. At the heart of the story is one of the oldest concepts of humankind: the notion of the scapegoat.
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