Jackson's "The Lottery" reveals that human beings are capable of committing great atrocities and behaving cruelly, when such are condoned by society and peer pressure and tradition. The story also reveals that human beings are prone to scapegoat others.
The characters in the story are not exceptional or odd or different in any obvious way. They are normal people in a normal town. But when they form a group, or mob, and when atrocity and cruelty are sanctioned by the group, they eagerly participate in the behavior seen in the conclusion.
This actually parallels human behavior. Numerous examples exist, but I'll mention just one, which would have, in all likelihood, been fresh in Jackson's mind when she wrote the story. During WWII, Nazi's were not the only persecutors of minorities. Once persecution was sanctioned by the Nazis, towns and villages across Europe began persecuting Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals. Concentration camps were not the only places where minorities were slaughtered. Group violence is a real phenomenon.
"The Lottery" reveals this.
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