Dramatic Irony

"Next think you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves"

This excerpt from "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is an example of dramatic irony. It is because when the society is described, it appears that it is a pretty modernized society. There are schools and a town where people gather. However, these people are having a lottery to put someone to death. The method of death is stoning, a 1st century death penalty. The man here is upset that some places do not have lotteries anymore and that they're moving backwards in time. The reader can see that these people are already moving back in time by having the lottery. I also came to the conclusion that they had the lottery to offer up a sacrafice for a good harvest.