What does the black box in "The Lottery" symbolize?

The black box symbolizes death.

In Shirley Jackson's dark tale of man's blind adherence to tradition, a community gathers mindlessly for their traditional lottery, a drawing of names in order to select the "scapegoat" for that year. Despite most people's having forgotten the original purpose for the lottery, the traditional act of stoning the "scapegoat" is carried out yearly with the prevailing wisdom being, as Old Man Warner says, "There's alwaysbeen a lottery." And,...

The black box symbolizes death.

In Shirley Jackson's dark tale of man's blind adherence to tradition, a community gathers mindlessly for their traditional lottery, a drawing of names in order to select the "scapegoat" for that year. Despite most people's having forgotten the original purpose for the lottery, the traditional act of stoning the "scapegoat" is carried out yearly with the prevailing wisdom being, as Old Man Warner says, "There's always been a lottery." And, before saying this, he recites a time-worn expression, "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon."

The director of this lottery is Mr. Summers; he is in charge of the black box that contains slips of paper for each family. When the others learn that Mr. Hutchinson has drawn the one slip that designates a family, then Mr. Graves (symbolic name) picks up the five for each of the Hutchinsons and places them in the black box for Bill Hutchinson to draw. The member of the family whose slip has the black dot on it becomes the scapegoat who is then stoned to death by the others in the community.

Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office....

"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

Mrs. Delacroix picks up the largest stone she can hold, one that can inflict deadly force. Clearly, then, the black box containing slips of paper with a single one marked with a black spot represents death for one person.