 |
| "To light a candle casts a shadow." -- Ursula K. LeGuin |
If you are thinking about writing your final essay about Ursula LeGuin's short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," I strongly encourage you to do some extra reading. Here are some timely, relevant, and helpful sites:
This essay compares the people of the fictional town of Omelas to the people who attend or work at or support Penn State University. The people of Happy Valley may -- or may not -- turn out to be very Omelas-like. What do you think? Truth in advertising: one of my best friends in the world has been a professor at Penn State for twenty years, and he is about to "walk away . . ."
And here is a blog post written by a young man from Ireland. This essay convicts all of us. His argument is that in one way or another we all live in Omelas -- and we have not walked away.
UPDATE (12/06/2012): Here is a link to a video clip from ABC News, which discusses a raid on a sweatshop in India.
ANOTHER UPDATE (5/1/2013): Here is a link to a cool Tumblr page that might lead you to some thought-provoking questions.
ONE MORE UPDATE: (5/10/2019): You can find other journalists and cultural observers who have compared Omelas and its inhabitants to real-world situations. Here is one by David Brooks, published in New York Times in 2015. And here is one by one by Vandana Singh, written in 2018. Both are quite thought-provoking, and might help you organize your thoughts as you write about this short story.
There's more out there: timely writing about the state of the world RIGHT NOW, that uses this short story as a way of framing a particular argument. So my challenge to you is -- find it. Think about it. Respond to it. And then write about it. This is the true point of literature.
And dudes: Cite your sources!
Posted by Liz Holmes
