The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Analysis

In both Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Ursula LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” the idea of sacrifice is described in order to show how suffering and sacrifice is necessary for the happiness of others and to enlighten readers to the reality of the world. In the descriptions of the society, the extent and purpose of the sacrifice, and the deeper result of the sacrifice, the two societies have similarities, yet they have differences that enlighten the reader to a deeper understanding of the concept of sacrifice as it relates to happiness and society in general.

The similarities and differences in the descriptions of the societies help to emphasize the significance of sacrifice, which shows the reader that to have a good

society, sacrifice is necessary. In “The Lottery,” there is a sense of mortality and poverty. The description of Old Man Warner as the “oldest man in town” (Jackson, 1) who had been in the lottery for seventy-seven years (Jackson, 5) leads to a sense of mortality because it emphasizes how there are elderly people, and with the concept of elderly comes the concept of death. Additionally, details such as “...in this village, where there were only about three hundred people...” (Jackson, 1), “speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (Jackson, 1), and “The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by Mr.Summers” (Jackson, 1) all point to a sense of poverty because most of the time, small villages are associated with being poor, especially when it has farmers in it, as pointed out by the “speaking of planting and rain” (Jackson, 1), and when a village has one man to do so many activities instead of one man for each activity, it seems to emphasize the town’s being poor. On the other hand, in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” there is a sense of youth and wealthiness. The sense of youth is brought through details such as “quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked… people went dancing… children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights over the music and the singing… boys and girls, naked in the bright air” (LeGuin, 1), “the victory they celebrate is that of life” (LeGuin, 2), “the faces of small children are amiably sticky… the youths and girls have mounted their horses… tall young men wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd alone, playing on a wooden flute” (LeGuin, 2), because descriptions of children and life and happiness are all associated with the pleasures of childhood and youthfulness because it is guilt-free and unburdened by the worst of what we associate with life. Also, the sense of wealthiness comes from details such as “ringing of the boats in the harbor… past great parks and public buildings… master workmen…. Shimmering of gong and tambourine…. braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green… a cheerful faint sweetness of the air from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells…” (LeGuin, 1), “central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold… very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the trains station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers’ Market…” (LeGuin, 2) because one usually associates boats, parks, public buildings, workmen, instruments, silver and gold, bells, and modern luxuries with wealth due to the fact that it is similar to things that are associated with wealthier countries of the real world. First world countries are generally associated with luxury, but they depend on the sacrifices of others for their happiness, just like in “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Both of these societies depend on sacrifices of varying degrees, and these sacrifices lead to the betterment of their societies in different ways based on the sacrifice and intent of the sacrifice itself, which will clarify the necessity of pointing out the descriptions of the societies themselves.
The variances in the extent and purposes of the sacrifices show how happiness (and thus society in general) depends on suffering, no matter how minor a degree said happiness is.

In “The Lottery,” the sacrifice is the annual stoning of one randomly drawn member of the society for the sake of “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (Jackson, 4), which shows a short-term suffering for a single aspect of the betterment of their lives. Since the village consists of farmers, the sacrifice is more necessary to them if it provides them with a heavy harvest because it is their livelihood. Such a short-term sacrifice, though, does not lead to the long-term results such as what is found in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” in which the sacrifice is the long-term suffering of a child because “their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (LeGuin, 3). The long-term benefits of this society are dependent on the long-term suffering of the child. In this way, the sacrifices relate to the descriptions mentioned earlier-- because the sacrifice in “The Lottery” is short-term, their society is familiar with mortality and poverty because the sacrifice does not fully offset the tragedies of life, but in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” there is a more youthful, wealthy atmosphere because the long-term sacrifice balances out the evil of the world. Wealthy modern day countries depend on a sacrifice similar to the one mentioned in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” because they depend on the long-term suffering of poorer countries and people who work in sweatshops in order to maintain their luxurious lifestyle. In both fictional societies, their happiness is dependent on the sacrifice, and in both stories, it is mentioned that without

said sacrifice, the societies would collapse. In “The Lottery,” Old Man Warner expresses this sentiment when he states “listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while…. First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery…” (Jackson, 4) in response to hearing that “over in the north village, they’re talking of giving up the lottery” (Jackson, 4). The sentiment is also expressed in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” when it states “If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms” (LeGuin, 4). This idea that society will collapse if people are treated equally and there is no sacrifice is similar to the thinking that is held by some as an excuse to hold down those in third-world (or second-world) countries because they believe that if those countries are treated as equals and do not have to sacrifice their health and happiness for the wealthy countries’ sakes, then the first world countries would not be able to maintain their luxurious lifestyle and would have to live more modestly, which is considered (by some) to be the equivalent to the collapse of civilized society. Both fictional societies (as well as modern first-world societies) are entirely dependent on these sacrifices for their happiness and for their stability, but the results of the sacrifices are quite negative on a deeper level.

The sacrifices that the societies depend on to eliminate the bad in the world lead to bad things, primarily the loss of innocence and purity. Children are typically associated with innocence and purity because they do not fully understand the evil in the world, and it is usually considered something awful when something occurs that tears the innocence or distorts the purity of the child. In “The Lottery,” the sacrifice distorts the innocence of a child in the moment that “someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles” to throw at his mother (Jackson, 7). This ruins his innocence because although he is a young boy who does not understand it, he is partially responsible for his mother's death. The loss of innocence in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” comes from the suffering of the child as well as from when the child's suffering is “explained to children when they are between eight and twelve” (LeGuin, 3) because children are kept innocent by being protected from the suffering in the world, but if they suffer or are alerted to suffering, they lose their purity. This is a reflection of what sometimes happens in the real world-- children suffer daily in sweatshops and other low-income, high-risk jobs and grow up to become bitter people because they lost their innocence early on. Most societies choose to bear the loss of their purity in exchange for the benefits that come from suffering, but this is just replacing external evils with a deeper, more subtle, more destructive internal evil through dependence on sacrifice.
Although suffering and sacrifice are indeed integral parts of society, the societies described in “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” are both heavily dependent on sacrifice, which is found in a comparison between the descriptions of the societies, the extent and intent of their sacrificing, and the negative aspects that plague them as a result of their dependence. This dependence on suffering is a mimicry and exaggeration of modern society and shows the reader just how much that they themselves depend on the suffering of poorer people-- wealthier (or perhaps just luckier) people such as found in the middle class of first world countries choose products made by people who suffer in horrible circumstances (i.e. sweatshops), which is in essence a stamp of approval on their suffering because it makes the lives of the wealthy easier. Jackson and LeGuin both illustrated this idea of the dependence on sacrifice to reveal the harsh reality of the world.