In "The Lottery", by Shirley Jackson, the detail from the text that best contributes to the theme: Sometimes traditions continue long after they've outlived their usefulness, is The shabby and faded black box. In this text, we learn how dangerous it is to accept traditions blindly. In this town, the annual lottery ends up with a ritual murder. They feel incapable to change it. As it happens in the story with the black box. It was made with pieces of the first black box, and every year they want to replace it by a new one but they never succeed in doing that. So, both the lottery and the black box are traditions that continue long after they've outlived their usefulness.