![]() She foregrounds the neat tension that will be the central dilemma of the story when she titles it with a “walk from,” then starts the narration with a “ to.” Who will stay and who will leave? The main problem of the tale has already evidenced itself. Le Guin starts us off in a highly poetic mode. The lushness of the language and the rhetorical power of the telling augment the seduction of this collaborative relationship between narrator and reader. So, Omelas becomes a relative utopia, perfectly modeled in the mind of each reader. “Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids … for certainly I cannot suit you all” declares the narrator. By involving the reader as co-creator of this fantasy world, she implicates the reader in the decision acted out by the characters, both those who stay and those who leave. The author sets up structural tensions in order to lure the reader into making a choice that she refuses to make overtly. ![]() Le Guin creates a narrator who acts as a Jamesian “judicial investigator,” inviting the reader to wrestle with the moral dilemma presented whilst roping him/her/them into a terribly uncomfortable position by using several rhetorical tactics. The reader cannot not participate in the fiction, just as each citizen cannot not participate in Omelas’ horrible social contract. Holding the reader accountableĪ key aspect of this story and a clue to Le Guin’s opinion on the dilemma of departure manifests in the way the fiction itself contrives to hold the reader accountable as a virtual Omalasian, fully aware of parallels between the imaginary land and contemporary Western capitalist, imperialist society. Quotes by Ursula Le Guin on Writing, Reading, and Storytelling Nstead of dallying with escapist fantasies, Le Guin ultimately engages the utopian trope in order to put forth a political statement that becomes increasingly clear as the story evolves. Rather than offer a utilitarian excuse - the good of the many outweighs the good of the one - they would likely place emphasis on the incarcerated lost soul, who stands simultaneously inside and outside the society, sequestered in its dungeon in the center of town. To withdraw from this fellowship would be comparable to betraying the social contract and abdicating responsibility for the child’s lot. While the choice to walk away from the hideous bargain Le Guin puts forth may seem correct at first, a more careful reading suggests that both Le Guin and James would elect to stay in Omelas, imperfect as it turns out to be.Įach would likely insist on a dynamic ethical system existing and evolving among and dependent upon all community members. Neither Le Guin nor James, however, would necessarily applaud the members who choose to leave this community, for to do so, would not change the status of the suffering child. Some mistakenly argue that Le Guin supports the non-compliance of those who walk away. ![]() ![]() The author pits brute reality against fiction’s capacity to conjure illusory solutions and offers no easy answers. The Omalasians subscribe to a social contract contingent upon the exploitation of one child to ensure the happiness of all other citizens. Le Guin contends that in this passage, “The dilemma of the American conscience can hardly be better stated.” In the story, a community inhabits a wonderful, fairytale world free of illness, anxiety, and social strife. “If the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which … millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torment… even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?” culture at the time of the Vietnam War, inspired by the “shock of recognition” she experienced upon reading this passage from William James: Le Guin considers the story an allegory of U.S. The tension between these two heaven-and-hell extremes could be summed up in a pull between the impulse to leave in the title and the joyous arrival of the festival that sets the stage.Ī carefree community that seems pleasing and just, turns out to be structured on injustice and ultimately untenable for some of its citizens.Įthical confusion arises both within the fictional world of the story and when the reader attempts to reconcile that textual space with the real world counterpart to which it refers. In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (Variations on a Theme by William James), Ursula Le Guin presents us with a utopia that turns out to include an imperfect, even nightmarish dystopia. ![]()
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