The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas

I did not like the passage at first. I thought it was repetative & time consuming. But, as I reached the ending & the little boy I gained a new perspective on it. I ended up liking the passage. It is my favorite 1984 related-ish post yet. I like how, unlike BNW, 1984, and robots dreams , the people of Omelas are actually aware of their situation, they have compassion and are able to make decisions for themselves. They simply choose not to decide to let the child out because it is for the betterment of the city. I also liked how some people did feel sickened by the city they live in and had the ability to leave the society.

There are many connections to the novel 1984 and this story. Both are obviously about a society that strives to be perfect. To me this story more relates to BNW than 1984. But as I stated earlier, there are some key differences. In both BNW & 1984 the people were unable to both conprehend and exit the society that they lived in, but in this story the people were well aware of their circumstances and what they had to sacrifice to keep it "perfect". They also had the ability to leave freely from this society.

There were numerous literary devices used in this story. Some include simile, metaphore and personfication. With the use of these literary devices it helps to further illustrate the story, especially the setting. Many of these devices are used in describing the happy and perfect nature of the festival and people of Omelas. This gives the reader a greater visual image and impression of the "perfect" city, which makes it that much more appalling when we find out the root of all this happiness.

1.Why does the author go to such lenghts to fully describe the happy setting of the festival?

2.Without the long description of the city's happy nature, would it have taken away from the forcefull ending?

3. The author likes to use discription to get his point across (i.e. the description of the state of the boy) does this aid the story? how?

4. Why is this titled "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas" when the majority of the story is not about those who walked away from omelas? What impact does it make on the story?

5. What is the tone and voice of the author?