After the first draft, we did some peer review to reader each other's paper. I think it is really helpful for us to learn and edit essay. When we read other people's articles, we can also reflect on whether our article structure meets the requirements. Reading is also a process of learning. At the same time, your partner will help you identify the mistakes and irrationality in your article, and read your article in a new perspective, which can give you some fresh ideas.

I would also like to thank my partner Leo for pointing out many of my grammatical errors and giving me a lot of workable suggestions. Among them, the first draft I wrote too many social phenomena which the instruction requires more analysis of the essays. I completed the second draft according to the suggestions and explanations in the lecture.

Qiaobai Zhang

Cassandra Dowd

Writing 39B

April 28, 2019

Rhetorical analysis of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

       Ursula Le Guin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” discusses a community that is perfect where the only thing that enhances equality, harmony, and prosperity is the sacrifice of the child. Creating and visualizing the Utopia of individuals is easy, for a person to be engaged in the real dilemma of morality: the happiness of several individuals than for one person. The short story brings forward the symbol that ponders the modern and the past problems in the society such as slavery, injustice, and military sacrifice. Each individual might have confronted moral dilemmas in several ways in their lives.  The author of the short story gives an account of a perfect city where individuals are happy and live in their great lives although there is still a price to pay. The story explains how a child under construction, locked in the basement with dirt and feces, a child that is never allowed to interact with other people or having a chance to see the sunlight. It is important for this tragedy to occur in the society for it brings at the end the happiness of Omelas people, which is the same as the modern society. However, Guin puts the reader in the type of fairytale Omelas land, which is a perfect land with immense prosperity and happiness. The themes presented throughout the story entwine in formulating a great message.

       In the start of the story, Guin introduces Omela with nothing but positive imagery. Based on the setting, there is a colorful, vibrant atmosphere with celebrations, and kids play to their heart's content. The author places the reader in a ceremony for Omelas, where the author chose the timing to reveal the bustling and jovialness celebrations of the city. However, Guin made a smart move, and the setting timing prevents the reader from building doubts in Omelas. From the passage, an expert shows this intention from the author, “a faint cheerful sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great, joyous clanging of the bells.” (Guin para. 1). With various explanations of individuals of Omelas, the narrator reviews the cheerful imagery. In the second paragraph, the narrator gives descriptions of the citizens as “not simple folk” and stresses that individuals against violence, mature, happy, and intelligent. Based on these descriptions, the author exposes the community as of extremely successful and high class. Besides, the narrator poses many questions at the beginning of the story, which places the reader in the sense of uneasiness as to why she is asking all those questions as well as if there is something that has not been exposed yet to the city. Guin intended to ask these questions, and 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.  

       It is common for individuals, as a human being to struggle for freedom, and as it is clearly stated in the modern world and the ones in the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” no one enjoys freedom. Because people are aware that they are free from the sufferance of the child, 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.”

       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. Representation of crime controversially indicates itself when Omelas’ individuals fail to take action for the benefit of the child on behalf of the community that individuals regard as perfect. 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)

       Individuals from the town allow the sufferance of the child for their happiness. They find out 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). It is hard for people to stay in Omelas with the insight that their happiness indicates that the child leaves a misery life for its entire life. It is so disgusting and sickening that the children are suffering these terrible conditions, and after sometimes, people discover that they are providing excuses in justifying why individuals cannot assist and accept the things that others have been passing through. 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.

       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.

       Lastly, the narrator demonstrates the reason for the horrendous treatment, “but they are all aware of their happiness, the health of their children, the beauty of their friendship, the skill of their makers, the wisdom of their scholars, as well as their kindly weather of the skies and their harvest, depend on entirely the abominable misery of this child.? (Guin para. 9). Success exposure of Omelas shows that nothing is perfect in the city by demonstrating deface of Omelas, the child treatment. The narrator describes how people of Omelas are successful because of this child, the thing that teaches the community to treat their children appropriately and be careful not to treat other people the same way as the child. Omelas children are disgusted even though later on come to terms with the bitter truth and admit that it is for their good and together with the community utilizes the existence of the child for protecting and expanding the harmony of the city. The ties in the next better concept tend not to exist without evil by showing the Omelas success because of the misery of a child. As mentioned in the story, the citizens have come to terms with this reality. On the contrary, they could have released the child.

       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.