How Does The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Symbolism

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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas The short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” tells the allegorical tale of a ‘flawed’ Utopian society. On the day on which the narrator is focusing, the city’s people are celebrating the summer festival. The children ride willing horses in races and race about the fields in their bare feet. The day is bright and clear, music of all kinds fills the air, bells ring, and the air itself is sweet. At first impression, this society and its people appeal greatly to me but it is difficult to describe the joy that is felt by the people of Omelas. LeGuin (the narrator) uses imagery to get the reader into thinking Omelas seems like a nice place with “a cheerful faint sweetness of the air” and “joyous clanging of the bells” (pg 1) LeGuin uses all this imagery on the first page of the story so that is in my opinion an opening on how the rest of the story will be like until LeGuin drops the news of the child living in the basement. You then start to feel that there is something wrong. The narrator invites me to get into the creation of the society and leaves much of the town’s details and characters to the reader’s imagination saying “Perhaps it would be the best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all”. However, beneath the …show more content…

Knowing about the child is probably what makes them appreciate their happiness. Just like in real life you appreciate more what you have after you realize how others suffer. In my mind, the child of Omelas represents those children working in sweat shops. In a sense, they live the way they live, so we can live the way we live. What I mean by that is, they work 16 hours a day in poor lighting, a poorly sanitized environment, and for not much more than pocket change, so we can enjoy wearing different designer lables to different occasions and

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