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Compare And Contrast The Left Hand Of Darkness And The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Decent Essays

The Left Hand of Darkness and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas seems to be two absolutely different books. Their main contents seems to be unrelated, one talks about one people’s adventure and the other illustrates some facts about one city. However, to a certain extent, this short article seems to be the miniature of the Left Hand of Darkness and only different in some details and ways of expression.
Some of the people’s characteristics, opinions, and even the plots from two different pieces are similar to each other. To begin with, backgrounds of both works are imaginary cities or countries, “Winter Planet” and “Omelas”, which are away from the real world, locating in somewhere unknown. Based on the setting, both authors could imagine and …show more content…

Besides, both the article and the book contain huge shifts. Writers each begins the pieces by describing one grand parade. Their cheerful tones and the impressive ceremonious scenes build up reader’s expectation and form big contrasts to the rest of the pieces. In the article, after Guin finishes joyous scenes of citizens of Omelas, she shifts the essay focus to the little kid in the basement. She depicts its circumstances, what kind of environment it’s in, its sadness, its behavior, and its dullness just in the same way she portrays the parade. In the book, at first, Genly Ai received special, meticulous care. He was treated as if he was pregnant; he got extra clothes and heating stove because he was still not used to the cold climate on Winter Planet. However, his later experience in the Farm and among glaciers forms a sharp contrast against his previous treatment. The kid’s suffering and Ai’s later pain are strengthened under those huge shifts, because readers know what the happy …show more content…

First of all, the reason that the kid sacrifices himself in order to protect the whole country is different from Estraven’s. The kid is forced to do so. He used to be enveloped by his family’s love, but now he has no choice but to be locked in the basement. Maybe he does not even know why his should stay there and why he is not allowed to visit his mother, and maybe one day he will forget those questions and get accustomed to the situation. Meanwhile, Estraven isn’t the same. He did so is completely out of his personal will. Though Leguin does not make his true motive clear in the book, Estraven eventually sacrifices himself, rather than escaping away. He even commits suicide, the most horrible way to die in Winter Planet, to ensure Ai successfully meets the king and contacts with his spaceship. Moreover, the works are narrated in two different ways. In the article, author uses the first person “I” to describe the facts about Omelas. It makes readers feel like there’s a story teller is describing a world in fancy, and he sometimes introduces his personal view in it. However, the book is completely based on experience of Ai and Estraven. What readers know are limited to what they know; therefore, readers do not know what happens to the king when Ai and Estraven are away; readers do not know what those foretellers think and how they make prediction. This provides

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