Welcome. I'm Kristin and this is my blog Kristinguistics (all kinds of Kristyntax), which will address literary matters and deliver my opinions on relevant literary topics.
For my first post, I'll have you know that my favorite text from the summer is "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin. Initially in the short story, the author describes a utopian city called Omelas and the people who happily inhabit it with bright and cheerful imagery. As the story progresses, however, it becomes clear that the citizens of Omelas are imperfect and complex.
The story becomes very compelling to me when the speaker notes that, "[the people of Omelas] have a bad habit... of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting." Continuing with a similar idea, the speaker also states that, "the joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial."
Evidence of the citizens' off-putting derivation of contentedness is provided when the speaker describes the delicate situation of Omelas where the well-being and the joyousness of the entire city depend on the absolute misery of a single child. What is most striking about this predicament, in my opinion, is the fact that the population of Omelas as a whole is able to collectively justify and essentially condone the complete neglect of an innocent and helpless being.
Even more compelling is that those who actually walk away from Omelas choose to walk away, but they never make a formal decision. They are presented with the options of helping the child or living with the knowledge of his or her miserable existence, and the citizens of Omelas either choose the latter or avoid the decision entirely.
I found "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" to be incredibly thought-provoking because the radical rationalization of condemning a child to a lifetime of suffering and the citizens' avoidance of liberating him or her beg the questions: does human nature allow justification to supersede compassion, and could human compassion ever be enough to bring an end to suffering?
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