Qiaobai Zhang

Cassandra Dowd

Writing 39B

May 12, 2019

Rhetorical analysis of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a short story written by Ursula Le Guin. The injustice of the suffering child in the story works as a social commentary on the real-life suffering of weak individuals for others happiness. Le Guin conveys this message to readers using symbolism and by asking readers to question their own morality.

In the start of the story, Guin introduces Omela with nothing but positive imagery. Just as the embodiment of luxury life in our society. It symbolizes the carefree life of the nobility. Everyone has no troubles and lives a life they like. However, after the audiences have a notion that they understand the city, the narrator asks, “Do you accept the joy, the city, the festival? Do you believe it? No? Then let me explain one more thing (Guin para. 7). It was Guin’s success mentioning the quote for impacting the next part to the reader. There is the presence of an exception of a child who is abandoned and neglected in the basement of a building in a town staying in a lonely life. As time passes by, the awaking and discovery of individuals’ knowledge based on the fact that their happiness originates from the suffering of the child in the cellar, cause individuals to walk away from Omelas. Many individuals continue staying their happy utopian lifestyles, but the minority who keep going away from the city set forth the crux of the objective of the entire story. However, it is what keeps the audience interested and curious in understanding the reason as to why the existence of Omelas city is connected to the expanse of one person. The narrator attempts to reveal to the reader that even though the citizens stay “free” in a society considered perfect, inside their souls, they are not free. There are no slaves in this utopia as mentioned by the narrator, but the fact is that, same as slavery, child’s freedom is taken to liberate everyone in the society. There is slavery revealed by the child as the child is not liberated and is a servant to all the citizens of Omelas. However, the author offers a contradiction to the reader arguing, “…they did without monarchy and slavery,” where the author do not provide a conclusion that the kid is Omelas’. The narrator describes the people in the city as prosperous, equal, and joyous apart from the mistreated, confined, and malnourished child. Similar to the way the child lives in the town, the slaves in America suffered the same, where every born child served as a slave and was never freed. The child sleeps on the filth and dirt, at the base of the floor of the prison, which indicates how slaves used to sleep. The smelly mops along the buckets, which are rusty near the filthy closet is another symbol reflecting slavery in the story. It reveals a child as a servant to people, a slave. Therefore, the narrator explains to the reader, “It is afraid of the mop.” This mop is a symbol of formal slavery. The author shows the reader the darkness of slavery, how it gradually exploits the lowest slaves to give the slave owners a happy life without paying for them. This is also the author's resistance to slavery in morality. He hopes that people can liberate the people at the bottom, just like the children released in the basement.

In the city of Omelas, people have no power to control what is happening. Despite the narrator claiming that no guilt experienced in Omelas, the child reveals self-reproach 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). However, signs that reveal that there may be guilt with the people of Omelas are emotions. What about people who go away from the city and do not come back? Will it be as a result of guilt originating from the injustice of the child? The story does not describe this in the story, but in reality is that when people leave the city given any reason, it cannot do away with the fact that children always experience suffering when they leave for extended period without returning. Ursula Le Guin (246) claim that releasing the child from the unworthy situation will make it live with fear but not enjoying life. Children of Omelas strain in understanding why they are kept in such awful situations such as the basement and as described by the narrator, “often young people go home in tears…” (246). However, the sufferance of the child brings happiness to the people, which make them powerless in controlling what is happening in Omelas city. Just as many unfair phenomena in society today, most people are eager to change but often can't do anything to escape it. 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). The short story acts as a representation of American society via the characters’ moral development. The allegory allows the reader to confront the truth concerning the community to realize how criminal the majority of the individual is in some ways.

The symbolism of injustice is revealed in the story where people from the cities tend to violate the rights of a child through unfair and ill-treatment. In this city, there is no guilt that individuals suffer in Omelas, which makes the story interesting, extracting a more analytical approach from the audience provoking emotions of concerns, and enhances easy understanding of the problematic situation in the story. However, regardless of the reflections of guilt, powerless, happiness, sadness, and cross-relational knowledge from the audience the ‘pathos’ strategy strikes great suspense when it comes to understanding of the reasons for the departure of individuals from the paradise. In the story, the author claims several times that the town of Omelas is improbable, and tries to find out in the entire story, “How can I describe the people of Omela?” and “Do you believe?” (Guin para. 7). It puts the reader in a hypothetical situation if Le Guin presents the reality or what she might be concealing in the story. With tuck speed, the imagery tends to charm to pathos within the story. The author uses charms such as “whining,” “helplessness,” and descriptions of the purulence sores on the child’s leg and buttock. However, readers might question why the town of Omelas allows this to occur or the essence of sinful torture to children. It is crucial having these questions as they are similar to the story interpreting the desired “significant evil” they face with the moral standard of what is significant. Therefore, Le Guin’s short story acts as a literature piece, which is common for its length within the symbolic nature and paradoxical undertones. The sufferance of the child brings peace to many people in the city of Omelas. Similar to the world that we live today, many individuals have been accepting to stay a happy life with ignorance of helpless individuals. The deplorable part is that those who walk away fail to make an effort of taking the child together with them, "strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child” (Le Guin, 283).

The connection between the city and the child reveals the gaps in the community, particularly in capitalism. Fostering success in society, there should be suffering in one way or another. The idea of competition with losers and winners in achieving success is found in the story. However, the passage demonstrates a community, which tends to be perfect, but in reality, it looks like a system of the capitalist. The child symbolizes the lower class that requires serving as the sacrifice for the upper class in living in harmony. The horrible situation for the child is proof of this theme. In conclusion, the narrator describes some walk away from the city in leaving the controversy. Same as a capitalist system, an individual has freedom of participating in different competition game or not. The short story can be viewed as a political allegory.

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.

Le Guin, Ursula K. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Variations on a theme by William James)." Utopian Studies2.1/2 (1991): 1-5.

Adams, Rebecca. "Narrative Voice and Unimaginability of the Utopian" Feminine" in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and" The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Utopian Studies 2.1/2 (1991): 35-47.

Khanna, Lee Cullen. "Beyond Omelas: Utopia and Gender." Utopian Studies 2.1/2 (1991): 48-58.