The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas-Review #5

I know this is a little unorthodox but I would like to do a review on the short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin. I had first read this short story about a year ago when it was assigned in my college English class and I really enjoyed it.

The story begins by describing this perfect little town having a Festival of Summer and Le Guin describes the citizens of Omelas as joyous and cheerful. The elements of setting and style are used to develop and improve each other to make a thought provoking and well developed tale. Ursula Le.Guin uses language that creates great visionary and makes the reader feel like they too are in the story which is something I love in an Author. She goes on to illustrate a wonderful place where children are playing, families get together, and seemingly perfect place to live. 

Then the author goes on to describe a completely different and unsettling setting that changes the entire tone of the story which is what I like about it, the darkness behind it. She describes a room as having only one door and no windows, she says there are filthy, smelly mops and there is a child sitting in the room. The setting is dark and she describes the child as being unintelligent and thin. Le Guin uses very descriptive and disturbing language to create an image of the poor child. She even goes as far as calling the child “it” and saying it could be either a boy or a girl. In the beginning of the story everyone is picturing this perfect little place with green grass and joy, but like all good things, it has its terrible secrets. As it turns out, in order for Omelas to stay "perfect", have wealth and good health, this child needs to suffer and act as a sacrifice. Most citizens of Omelas know it's there which makes it even more horrible of a situation but some of them are so horrified by this that they end up leaving and walking away from Omelas to an unknown place.

Now I love this story because it reminds me a lot of another short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson which is mainly about someone being stoned to death in order for the town to have good harvest for the year. Stories like these have a good way of describing the selfishness of humans and how they would rather "stay with the crowd" then go against it to stand up for what they know is wrong. The situation in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas all the citizens know it is morally wrong but they justify it by pretending to believe it will give them good luck, health and wellness. I recommend these two short stories to anyone who enjoys reading about moral values and overall human stupidity and selfishness.