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Le Guin’s Story

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights, over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green’ Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their

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Added on  2023-01-23

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In Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, she expresses the hard truths about the human condition through the victimization of one child.

Le Guin’s Story

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights, over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green’ Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their

   Added on 2023-01-23

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Running head: LE GUIN’S STORY
Le Guin’s Story
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Le Guin’s Story_1
1LE GUIN’S STORY
In Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, she was making
efforts to express the underlying hard truths that are prevalent about the human condition
(1973). Due to a prearranged agreement, the society in the story is given complete happiness
and sense of utopia with the agreement that all this could only be available through the
victimization of one child. This child gets chosen from the population to live as a human
scapegoat, the living conditions of the child are described as being barbaric because he lives
in a small, windowless room in the basement of a building. Since we see the child being a
scapegoat, it will be useful to find out what the idea of scapegoatism actually refers to – an
individual that is assigned something instead of another person as is in this case, the child
who is called for the role of suffering in lieu of the rest of the society living in pure
happiness.
Due to this, the child actually serves a big role in the society along with ensuring the
well-being of others in the society. This story’s main framework came from a quote by
William James who had said that if there were a hypothesis given to the people that millions
of people could be ensured permanent happiness on the condition that one lost soul will be
required to live a lonely life filled with torture, how hideous would the enjoyment then
become if it came at a price of someone else’s happiness (Hirsch, 2016). The story is
considered to be highly allegorical because the child in the story suffering in the basement
while everyone in the above ground is living their happiest life is representative of the
contrast of the lifestyle being led by the rich and the poor in our current capitalist society. If a
more macrocosmic view is taken of Le Guin’s story, then the difference between the child
and the society can also represent Third World and First World countries respectively, in
regards to the political and economic systems benefitting the privileged group of people.
Though Le Guin does not express her personal opinions about Omelas, she creates
some characters in her story that are finding themselves unable to handle or deal with the idea
Le Guin’s Story_2

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