The Lottery

The Lottery in Oceania is synonymous with the Lottery in present-day society. It is something that lots of people get excited about – buying a lottery ticket on your 18th birthday is a rite of passage – but yet the stories of actually winning are few and far between. Even when there is a “big winner” it is usually someone in some far-flung locale; knowing a winner is very rare. And yet countless people continue to play week after week. Orwell uses this to show that, even though the proles technically live outside the reign of The Party, they are still willing to blindly follow where The Party leads and never question how the actual system works. Instead, they continue to play and hope that someday they will get lucky, never realizing that the entire system is rigged because they never think to question authority – a grim warning for readers who may find themselves to be complacent.