The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a short story I had heard of in comparison to the Lottery, but never got a chance to read. Because of this, the twist was spoiled for me, but it really didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story at all. I really loved the casual unreliability of the narrator. I also liked that the narrator just came out and said imagine Omelas one way or another way, it doesn’t matter. Scene setting isn’t the purpose of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. What is important is the situation of Omelas. In that respect, the story also (probably intentionally) contradicts itself by criticizing those who only notice suffering and then only going into extreme detail on the suffering of the child in the base (that was hard to read and imagine). Everything else about Omelas is up for open interpretation except for this poor child’s situation.
Another very interesting aspect of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is what the speaker says people have to think about the child in order for them to be okay with it. “They begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a very little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy” (page 6). This explanation is dehumanizing to the poor child, the people of Omelas cease to view “it” (and the speaker refers to the child as “it”) as a human being! Don’t you just love groupthink? I was so mad when I read that.
The townspeople of the Lottery‘s justification for their violent ritual is even more flimsy than Omelas’. They are just creatures of habit, completely unable to change their ritual because it’s been done for so long because they are afraid of what will happen without it. Really it seems like they hardly think of stopping it. This is why, in my opinion, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is better at explaining this phenomenon of people forgetting their humanity, because it talks about (and is named after) those who can’t. The Lottery hints at this by mentioning other towns, but (and maybe it’s because I’ve read this story too many times in high school) the point doesn’t strike as well as it does in Omelas. What do y’all think?
I had never heard of this story before so it was a actually very interesting to see how you reacted to it after having a vague understanding of the story prior. The part in which they put the poor child into the category as “it and claimed his freedom basically pointless also made me very upset because one’s humanity should never be debated– I also really like how you related groupthink to the short story because it definitely is applicable.
I, myself, had never read either story before. When I read the story of the Omelas, it reminded me of the trolley effect. I definitely think of the child having been the one who had to suffer in order for the greater public to be in good shape.
I similarly had never heard of either of these stories before. I agree with you that “Omelas” did a better job of demonstrating how people are able to forget their humanity because they were all confronted with the question of whether or not the treatment of the child was unjust, and they are all able to make the decision of whether or not to ignore it, or leave the community.