Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Literary Analysis

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There’s a big difference between dictating and becoming someone ― like an author. Dictating is to command a person while becoming someone is to change into that person. Virginia Woolf tells us in How Should One Read A Book that we should “not dictate to your author” and “try to become him” (Woolf). So what should we do if a text is completely disagreeable ― like school assigned books that we might come to hate because we’re forced to read them, take notes, and complete quizzes or readings that we can’t figure out because of their denseness and complexity. For example, if I found the short story of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, written by Le Guin, dreadfully boring or difficult to figure out, I would attempt determine what Le Guin meant …show more content…

While being open minded does help one open up to new ideas and thoughts, and maybe get one interested in the text, it doesn’t quite let one to become the author of that text. In the short story of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Le Guin begins by describing a beautiful festival that’s ongoing in the perfect city of Omelas where everyone is happy, except for the child that’s locked away in the basement. Le Guin concludes this short story by telling the readers what the people, who saw the child, do with their lives after the encounter. To get what Le Guin was trying to write, first come up with questions that could help one understand the story. This can help one become more interested and involved with the text and understand it better. For example, what is Le Guin trying to convey to the readers when she concludes the story by mentioning that some who see the child “seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas” (Le Guin)? With this conclusion, readers can interpret this short story however they want to, and perhaps, this is what Le Guin wants from the readers. What we’re trying to find out about the text is not the reasons of how and why the author wrote whatever they did, but the how and why of the conclusion or point the author is trying to make and what they want the readers to

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