Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Through the course of this paper the author will try to demonstrate, depicting both sides of the argument, the reasons in which a follower of John Stuart Mill 's "Utilitarianism" would disagree with the events taking place in Ursula Le Guin 's "The One 's Who Walk Away from Omelas."

“If the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a specific and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain”? This is a quote from the American philosopher William James that largely inspired the story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” written by Ursula K. Le Guin. Ursula though born in California, currently resides in Portland Oregon. Her mother was a writer and her father an anthropologist. She thought of the name Omelas when she saw a road sign for Salem Oregon.

Contemporary American culture is represented in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. Omelas is a Utopian city which inhabits citizens who are pleased and content with their lives. It is described as happy, full of freedom and joy. However, this privilege of life comes at a price. In order for the people of Omelas to live this way, a child must be kept stowed away in a dark closet. Miserable and left to wallow in it's own filth, the citizens are told or even bear witness to the child's agony. After being exposed to the child, most of the citizens carry on with their lives, employing the cause of the child's unfortunate place in their society. Nobody knows where they go, but some do silently walk

Many believe that the human race is inherently evil, and the story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas shows this with jarring detail. Ursula LeGuin tells the story of a seemingly perfect city named Omelas and its residents that know nothing but contentment and peace. However, this is offset by the suffering of one child, that, if freed from its prison, would jeopardize the happiness of the rest of the city. Therefore, the theme of Omelas is morality, which is shown through LeGuin’s use of imagery, “man vs. society” conflict, and utopia.

Motivational interviewing may be defined as “a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion” (Miller and Rollnick 2012). It is this students aim to demonstrate an understanding of this concept. This will be achieved by critiquing a digital recording of a case scenario that this student previously recorded. Throughout this essay an

To be happy, one must take the happiness of others. That’s just how it works, right? In most cases, joy is brought by other’s despair. Author Ursula K. Le Guin took this into a more literal level, in her short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Le Guin tells a story about a town of fueling all of it’s happiness through one child who must suffer.

Sometimes, people who visit the child have a different reaction, they do “not go home to weep or rage, [do] not, in fact, go home at all.” These are the people that walk away, these are the people that refuse to let guilt control their life, these are the people who confront their feelings and not bury them. Le Guin continues to respect the people who leave, as she writes about how they demonstrate compassion. “Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox,” describes how the children seeing the child for the first time react. While the children mostly act the same way when they see the child, in a fit of rage as described earlier, what differs from those that stay and those that leave, regarding compassion, is whether they feel more compassion towards the suffering child or the potential of an unhappy community. Those that leave tend to dwell on the compassion that they feel for the child, and tend to not feel as much compassion towards the community as a whole. The guilt regarding the child's condition, that is felt by those who leave, may never subside. This is not true for all the citizens of Omelas, as others look at the suffering of the child in terms of the communities greater

Audience analysis: My audience consists of an elderly, unemployed white woman from West Virginia who has dealt with depression, anxiety and dementia; a younger white couple, of whom, the woman suffers from depression and anxiety due to a car accident as a teenager. She is educated and employed as a director of a mental health facility. The young male was raised in New York City and feels like he has symptoms of anxiety but never formally diagnosed by a professional.

I am writing in regards to your book, The Outsiders. The world often categorizes people according to their wealth, appearance, and popularity. We tend to think of the upper class as professional, powerful, and problem free, while the lower class is looked at as problem prone, uneducated, and criminals, but after reading your book my perspective changed. I realized that problems do not have a specific category, and being superior in society doesn’t bring you true happiness. Instead our value can be determined by how we face the challenges we are given, and the people around us.

The target population I have chosen to asses is children with food insecurities. The geographical parameter I plan to use is the Las Cruces area. I chose Las Cruces because this is where I’m currently situated. The two stakeholders that I will be interviewing are Lorraine Guillen and Martin Nanna. Lorraine Guillen is the school social worker/counselor at Mesa Middle School. Lorraine is the creator of the farmers market at Mesa. The farmers market provides food to the children and families at the school that are struggling from food insecure households. Martin Nanna is the head manager at El Caldito soup kitchen. Martin works to help provide daily meals for families that are homeless, which includes children.

In the solitude of pitch-black infinite space, “men forgot their passions”-all values were lost, hopes and goals were put on hold, and only darkness existed. A world living in darkness was forced to displace its

The method I chose for this analysis is in-depth interview. This ethnographic method will be best because it allows me to understand an

A theme that can be discovered in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is knowledge can be equally or more painful than pain itself. According to the text, "Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science." (Ursula Le Guin, 7) This section of the text is referring to the knowledge that the citizens of Omelas receive at

Second, my economic status has affected how I see myself. As one of the many Americans in the lower middle class I’ve had to work for everything that I have. I grew up in a very wealthy and privileged town and while most of my friends lived in the lap of luxury, I started working when I was 13 so that I could help my mom support our family. In being from a less fortunate economic background, I’ve pushed myself through multiple adversities. For example, in applying to college I knew I would have to get a scholarship to in order to attend. The motivation I found to apply to and win a scholarship was developed by my economic background. Being lower middle class has shaped my work ethic and my levels of motivation to get things done. In Goleman’s article about what makes a leader in

I can relate to this because my parents growing up would have been considered working class. My mother was a stay at home mom and my dad worked for a paper mill and still does. I remember struggling with writing anxieties in elementary school and not wanting to ask for help because I was afraid to upset my teacher. This article has changed my opinion on audience appeals because particular articles such as this one can hit home and make you think back to when you were a kid and particular struggles you may have had, this gives the reader something to relate back to and they are able to reflect. For example, when they said how parents typically worked a blue collar job, well in elementary school my dad would have been considered blue collar at his job because we was not yet a manager. In this course, I will use this information to help me guide where I want my writing to go and whose attention I need to