A theme for the lottery is tradition/traditionalism and how it can ultimately do more harm than good. In the lottery we know that the drawing of papers from the box has been going on for many years.The villagers have no good reason for wanting to keep the black box aside from a vague story about the box’s origins, and the box itself is falling apart. Beyond shabby, it barely resembles a box now, but the villagers, who seem to take such pride in the ritual of the lottery, do not seem to care about the box’s appearance. "Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box". The consequence of being the unlucky person who draws the marked paper results in stoning and what we can assume is death. Traditionalism is what people are used to so unless you are seeing tradition from the outside looking in, it would seem as though nothing is wrong with it.
