The Lottery

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" concerns itself with concepts of magic and superstition and their place in society. In this story the townspeople once a year in June hold a "lottery" essentially to see which one of them is going to get stoned to death.   This lottery has been going on for ages and the townspeople and the people before them are so superstitious that if they don't do this lottery and if someone doesn't get stoned to death then they're scared the wont have good crops.  They think that by doing this ritual something magically happens and they always have a good crop season.  This superstition reminds me of today how some people do certain things like before a game because they're superstition and if they don't do those things then they're going to have a bad game.