An analysis of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” In this assignment, I will be analysing the piece of text ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’. I will be discussing the themes Utilitarianism and Exploitation in the text, and how these themes have an impact on the reader. Firstly, the theme Utilitarianism is shown throughout the text ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’. According to www.dictionary.com, utilitarianism is ‘The ethical doctrine that conduct should be directed toward promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons’. In short, this means that for an action to be morally right, it must benefit the greatest amount of people possible. When it doesn’t benefit the most amount of people possible, then the action …show more content…
In the text, it quotes ‘One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The other never come close’ which implies that some of the people of Omelas may believe that there is something wrong with the child, and this could also be backed up by the quote ‘It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective.’ This quote shows that the child may have been used to guarantee the towns utopian society, since the child could be exploited because it wouldn’t be able to understand what was happening to it. As the text was written in the 1970s, the term ‘feeble-minded’ or ‘defective’ could mean anything for dyslexia to cerebral palsy, and could be the reason that the towns people felt justified or were able to accept the exploitation of the child for the benefit of the town. ‘It lives on half a bowl of corn and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festering sores’ (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973) shows the condition that the child has been living in, so that the people of Omelas can the beauty of their town, further showing the exploitation that the town is willing to go too. In addition to trying to justify the actions of the town members, the quote ‘in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.’ shows the exploitation of the child, as the quote is stating that without this immoral action, the town would ‘wither and be destroyed’ which is using the child for their own
The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of tree, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved” (Le Guin, 466). In essence, the city of Omelas is an allegory to Western culture. While both the city of Omelas and Western Civilization are the land of opportunity and freedom, Eastern Civilizations are plagued with child workers, sex trafficking and poverty. It is evident that suffering exists in all parts of the world but in the city of Omelas, such suffering is said to only exists in the basement of a building. “In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect...the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes” (Le Guin, 469). The child in the basement symbolizes all
in the city of Omelas are forced to walk away because they can not bear to witness the suffering in their society any longer.
The town of Omelas is a happy town that many would perceive as paradise. Another word for paradise is heaven. That is what it seems to represent, heaven. Or at the very least the heaven the flesh side of humanity wants. But this opens up another question, who is the kid here? Well if the town citizens represent a guiltless humanity and the town of Omelas is supposed to be heaven as seen by the flesh. The poor child, number eighteen themselves, must represent Jesus Christ
Throughout your life starting from when you were a child you have experienced different point of views from watching and listening to people. Whether you realize it or not what you have experience has shaped you into the person you are today. The two short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin and the essay “Hook Ups Starve the Soul” by Laura Vanderkam, are examples of how precedents can influence individuals decisions. These three texts reveal this concept by showing how individuals can be influenced by the actions that people are doing around them, by traditions that were set by past civilians, as well as following any previous examples set by family members. By showing the
-- returns to the poetic form, and admits that there might be nowhere to go for the people who have lived there. Just like the reader imagines Omelas, the escape must also be imagined, because once the knowledge of the starving child is known, it cannot be forgotten.
The city of Omelas is the most magical, idyllic place anyone’s imagination could possibly conjure. The people live happily, with everything they want and need, and most importantly without pain, evil, without monarchy, slavery, the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police and the bomb. Yet, the people are not simple minded, but rather are “mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives [are] not wretched” and “their children [are], in fact, happy”.
...though they were happy” (Le Guin 380) shows the reader that the Omelas were happy with their extravagant life. Le Guin states in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” that the “boys and girls were naked in the bright air” (380). An allusion to the Garden of Eden in biblical times, the nakedness represents the freedom, happiness, and utopian attitude of the people of Omelas.
A main factor in the storyline is the way the writer portrays society's attitude to poverty in the 18th century. The poor people were treated tremendously different to higher classed people. A lot of people were even living on the streets. For example, "He picked his way through the hordes of homeless children who congregated at evening, like the starlings, to look for the most sheltered niche into which they could huddle for the night." The writer uses immense detail to help the reader visualise the scene. She also uses a simile to help the reader compare the circumstances in which the children are in. This shows that the poor children had to live on the streets and fend for themselves during the 18th century. Another example involves a brief description of the city in which the poor people lived in. This is "nor when he smelt the stench of open sewers and foraging pigs, and the manure of horses and mules" This gives a clear example of the state of the city. It is unclean and rancid and the writer includes this whilst keeping to her fictional storyline.
In the utopian city of Omelas, there is a small room underneath one of the buildings were a small unwanted child sits and is mistreated and slandered for existing. The child’s terrible existence allows the city to flourish and thrive with grace and beauty. Visitors come to view the miserable juvenile and say nothing, while others physically abuse the innocent child. The utopian society is aware of the child’s “abominable misery” (216), but simply do not care to acknowledge it. Le Guin states, “[T]o throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt in the walls ... [T]here may not even be a kind word spoken to the child” (216). This means that since the child holds the responsibility of keeping the city beautiful, it has to go through the torture of neglect and separation from the outside
The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas is a short story written by Ursula Le Guin. In her story, Le Guin creates a model Utilitarian society in which the majority of its citizens are devoid of suffering; allowing them to become an expressive, artistic population. Le Guin’s unrelenting pursuit of making the reader imagine a rich, happy and festival abundant society mushrooms and ultimately climaxes with the introduction of the outlet for all of Omelas’ avoided misfortune. Le Guin then introduces a coming of age ritual in which innocent adolescents of the city are made aware of the byproduct of their happiness. She advances with a scenario where most of these adolescents are extremely burdened at first but later devise a rationalization for the “wretched one’s” situation. Le Guin has imagined a possible contemporary Utilitarian society with the goal to maximize the welfare of the greatest number of people. On the contrary, Kant would argue that using the child as a mere means is wrong and argue that the living conditions of the child are not universalizable. The citizens of Omelas must face this moral dilemma for all of their lives or instead choose to silently escape the city altogether.
The Dispossessed develops two parallel and dependent stories alternating with one another. One on the anarchist moon of Anarres, the other on the capitalist world of Urras. The Anarres story works by flashbacks in the life of the physic...
In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” Guin uses characters as the main symbols. In this story the child locked in a cellar is the most important symbol. This locked away child is a symbol for a scapegoat. The child is a scapegoat for all the wrong and bad that happens in Omelas. Omelas is only a perfect utopia because all the blame is put on the child. “They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom...
Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is a short story that captures racism directly towards blacks in America. In the story, the people of Omelas are celebrating the summer festival which song and dance. They decorated the streets; children are running around playing while the whole city attends. The people of Omelas don’t have a care in the world. They don’t use weapons, aren’t reckless people, but they aren’t simple people. They seem to be living in a utopia, a place where everything is perfect, granted by some type of devil or person. For a utopia to come true there has to be a sacrifice or arrangement. For the people of Omelas, they believe that to achieve a utopian society means someone has to suffer. The story portrays slavery in the United States. In the story, the sufferer, or the kid, symbolizes
...s a bigger and harder step not very many citizens of the world today are willing to do. Loosing the happiness that one gets in exchange from injustice in the world is an action that is unthinkable to humankind. The right ethical decision has to be made to entirely resolve the issue, but making that right ethical decision is impossible with the other factors of life such as personal happiness. In “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” the reader is taught the importance of making the right ethical decision and can relate these morals in their own community. One cannot just choose to ignore, one cannot just choose to observe and still do nothing, and one cannot just simply walk away. The reader is taught the momentous moral of not being a bystander, the importance of moral responsibility, and the great significance in learning to overcome the ethical issues in society.
In any society, some people must be more unhappy than others. This fact cannot be avoided. When someone drives through a McDonald's, they are happy to have the convenience of fast food, while the employees must suffer to some degree. And, the McDonald's employees may be happy to have a job, which is related to the misery of those who want jobs. These differences in levels of happiness occur in varying degrees. However, the difference in the level of happiness between people can be lessened through a number of actions by society in general. The town of Omelas is an extreme situation, in which the people are completely happy, and the child is completely miserable. The real world cannot produce such a situation because no one is completely happy. To be in a state of constant bliss goes against human nature. This fact, that complete happiness is unattainable, acts as a support for my decision to free the child. In the same light, complete misery is both unattainable and undesirable, and should be