When I saw this assignment, the first article I thought of was" The Ones Who Walk Away From the Omelas". Because I think this article is very suitable for analysis. But I have never written a rhetorical analysis article, there are still many doubts. I will first analyze the overall structure of the article. I think this is an article about the metaphor of the real society. The entire city symbolizes the real society. Children trapped in the basement are like slaves who are oppressed, or child laborers who are employed in modern society because of cheapness. All are to satisfy the high quality of life in the upper class. They have become victims of a seemingly happy society. When people in society slowly discover this social phenomenon, in the upper class, everyone reacts in a variety of ways. Some people are surprised, angry, incredible, some feel that things are not related, but no one lends a helping hand. This poor child, because they are about the happy life of everyone in the city. Everyone feels powerless. So I use these as my argument to expand my analysis of the article.

Here is my brainstorming map for the Draft. 

Qiaobai Zhang

Cassandra Dowd                                                                                                                               

Writing 39B

April 28, 2019

Rhetorical analysis of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

       The short story by Ursula Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, talks about a perfect community where child’s sacrifice is what brings prosperity, equality, and harmony to the individuals in this town.  As a reader, it is easy for an individual creating and visualizing their utopia, for one to be engrossed with the real dilemma of morality: many people’s happiness for one individual unhappiness. The symbol presented in the short story muses past and contemporary issues in the community like injustice, slavery, and military sacrifice. Everyone has faced moral dilemmas in one way or another in life. The author composes a riveting story of a perfect town where people are ever happy and staying their perfect lives even though there is a price to pay. A small child comes from the basement under construction covered with feces and dirt and never permitted interacting or seeing the sunlight with other individuals. The tragedy is viewed as crucial for the happiness of Omelas’ citizens and seemingly similar to the contemporary community.

       As human beings, everyone strains for freedom, and as it is vivid in the contemporary world and the one in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, no one is truly free.  The narrator claims that individuals know that they are not free just lie the child, which demonstrates to the reader that even though the citizens evidently live “free” in a perfect community, they are not free inside their souls. As mentioned by the narrator, there are no slaves in this utopia, but in reality, similar to bondage, the freedom of a child is taken from it. The child reveals bondage as it is not free and is a servant to every Omelas’ citizen. This way, the author provides the reader a contradiction claiming, “…they did without…slavery,” where she fails to conclude that the child is a servant of Omelas. In the city, the narrator describes individuals as joyous, prosperous, and equal, apart from the child who is confined, mistreated, and malnourished. As the slaves did in America, the same way the child lives in this city, where the child born from a slave was never freed thus becoming a slave. The dirt and filth where the child sleeps, on the bottom of the floor of the small prison, shows what several slaves utilized sleeping there. In the story, another symbol reflecting slavery could be the smelly mops near the buckets that are rusty, around the corner of the dirty closet, which is an indication of the child as a slave, servant to the individuals. However, the narrator describes to the reader, “it is afraid of the mop.”

       Individuals from cities who violate the human rights of child, unfair and ill-treatment, symbolize injustice. Injustice representation debatably reveals itself when individuals of Omelas fails to do something for the wellbeing of the child on behalf of the perfect society. Even though the narrator claims there is no guilt in Omelas, the child shows remorse when the narrator says, “They feel disgust…, they feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do” (245). This way, the emotions are signs that guilt might exist across the individuals of Omelas.  How about individuals who leave the town and fail to come back? Will it be because of the guilt regarding the child’s injustice? It is never described in the story, but the real thing is that when individuals leave Omelas for any given reason, it cannot erase the reality that children are still suffering when they go for long, failing to return. Ursula Le Guin (246) argue that if there will be the liberation of the child from its unfortunate condition, will not be in a position of enjoying life, but will stay with fear. Omelas’ children struggle to understand initially, why the child should keep the awful conditions it stays in, and as explained by the narrator, “often young people go home in tears…”

       Each in the city depends on the torture of the child for one to live an ideal life. The child shows how various sufferers who require persevering agony in life for individuals to stay the life of luxury that several are accustomed (Le Guin 3). Similar to the contemporary world, for Americans to live their ideal lives, the majority of people, habitats, animals, children, and so on should suffer for providing American society. For instance, the child in the story is typical to child laborers. Child labors, “...could be paid lower wages, were more tractable and easily managed than adults, and were very difficult for unions to organize” (History.com Staff 1). Being in a position of paying these child workers inconsiderable money made various businesses the chance of lowering prices. This way, while these children support their luxurious lives established by American society, they experience pain through dangerous and horrendous work conditions. The life of the child in Omelas is one of the tragedies that shows how many people suffer trying to make life luxury. Le Guin establishes her allegory in the story through the moral development of individuals who choose to stay in Omelas. Initially, the exposed children to the distracting secret of the child in the basement are horrifying and appalling. On the contrary, the children conclude that the suffering of one child is worth the happiness of the many individuals of Omelas. Giving many excuses, the moral development of the children takes a turn when “Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality and to accept it” (Le Guin 4).

       Citizens from the city allow the child to suffer for their happiness. They discover new joy and, “The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness” (Le Guin 4). Individuals cannot stay in Omelas knowing their happiness means a child is staying a misery life for the rest of its life. It is so sickening and disgusting that these children should suffer horrible situations, and later on, individuals find themselves giving excuses to justify why people cannot help and admit the horror individuals have been experiencing. Barbara Bennet supports this claim by saying, “All Americans-including high school students have seen this image numerous times, and when I ask students what they do when such an advertisement comes on television, most admit that they change the channel to avoid watching it” (Bennett 67). This way, the short story represents American society through the moral development of the characters. The allegory makes the reader facing the truth regarding community, and to recognize how the majority of people are criminal in one way or another. Choosing to reject or accept it, were are similar to the people who live in Omelas. Therefore, after reading the story, many individuals would wonder how possible it is for people to be like the ones living in Omelas.

       In the story, the author argues many times that the Omelas’ city is unbelievable, and enquires throughout the story, “How can I describe the people of Omela?” and “Do you believe?” It makes the reader keep on questioning if Le Guin is truthful or the meaning that she could be hiding in the story.  Within the story, the imagery charms to pathos with tuck speed. The author utilizes appeals like “whining,” “helplessness,” and explanations of the festering sores on the buttocks and the legs of the child. This way, the reader keeps on questioning why the Omelas city permits this to happen or why is it essential for such sinful torture. These questions are similar to the story as they interpret the expected “necessary evil” they confront with the ethical standard of what is crucial. This way, the short story by Le Guin is a piece of literature, which is prominent for its length across its paradoxical undertones and symbolic nature. The child who is suffering in the city enhances many individuals of the town to live in peace.

Works Cited

Bennett, Barbara. "Through Ecofeminist Eyes: Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" The English                        Journal 94.6 (2005): 63-68. Web.

History.com Staff. History.com. A+E Networks, 2009. http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor. Accessed                                September 11, 2016.

Le Guin, Ursula K. "The ones who walk away from Omelas." Evil and the Hiddenness of God (2014): 23.