Archetypes are repeated patterns that occur more than once. The Task of “The Lottery” was a huge archetype that really stood out to me. The whole village coming together to perform this monstrous task is so absurd yet they go about it without a complaint. Somehow no one finds a fault in what they are doing. The main universal archetype of this story is seen throughout the world only manifested much differently. Instead of stoning the winner, in many cases people get lottery tickets and the winner instead gets rewarded with money. There are many different ways a lottery can be performed but the main ideas are all the same. The archetype of the “black box” shows how the color black, meaning death or darkness, comes into play when ultimately whoever picks the paper out of the box with the dot will die. The “scapegoat character” archetype also comes into effect in “The Lottery”. Mrs. Hutchinson will be the scapegoat for she gets the punishment from the whole village for doing absolutely nothing. She did not do anything wrong but just happened to have the worst luck. She was the scapegoat for the town.
