About the Author
Born in 1929 and grew up in the state of California, Ursula Kroeber was a remarkable American novelist with a rich oeuvre. She was no alien to academia and literature since her childhood. Her parents were Alfred Kroeber (an anthropologist) and Theodora Kroeber (author of Ishi). She was a student at Radcliffe College and underwent her graduate work at Columbia University. The author has not only grown in an academic surrounding, but she embraced it by marrying historian Charles A. Le Guin in Paris in 1953. After a long life committed to literature, Le Guin died peacefully at her very dwelling in 2018.
Le Guin started her journey with a tremendous novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, appreciated for its deep exploration of gender roles and its moral and literary perplexity. Novels she wrote, such as The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home, have drawn new landscapes for the style of utopian fiction. The author was also a one-of-a-kind poet, especially with her collection titled So Far So Good, which only became public shortly after her death.
Ursula’s oeuvre was appreciated by the literary community, granted the National Book Award, seven Hugo Awards, six Nebula Awards, the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Malamud Award, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The herein figure was titled A Living Legend by the Library of Congress (ursulakleguin.com) nombre de tables.
Textual Analysis
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is a remarkable yet bewildering novel. It is not a novel that you can merely read and, at first sight, extract all the underlying messages and elements. One must peruse the short story and have every philosophical approach in his mind employed in order to construct, but a blurry image opened to philosophical controversy. Le Guin’s fiction can be said to hold fictional connotations also apart from its apparent fictional plot. This analysis will tackle this short story from the endless circle of literary criticism through which literary works are continuously sparked by others.
Title Analysis
Seemingly, the short story’s title is filled with wonder. ‘The ones who walk away’ is an expression that drags the reader closer to expectations about people running away from a miserable place. Yet, after one finishes reading, s/he will change his perception and rather envision the title as posing a philosophical, moral thesis. It is that of moral individuality, how one can be moral based on rational principles rather than social impulses, as Immanuel Kant (1785) states. Another interpretation may pop up should one be among the readers of Soren Kierkegaard (1843), who espouses the idea of an ethical stage of life that might be reached by those who walk away from Omelas. But what does the latter signify? – Omelas can be the reversal name of the American, French, and English cities ‘Of Salem,’ which is probably the spark that made the author’s speculated town.
Characterisation
Characters throughout Le Guin’s short story seem to be all flat, including those who walk away from Omelas. This work of fiction sheds light on certain philosophical ideas that are directly embodied through the semblances that are generated by the characters throughout the short story. The horses’ neighs seem to be never stopping, and so are the people coming through trains from other towns and no different from the dwellers of Omellas, including the child who will always be crying. All these are set to paint a philosophical painting, showing a moral conundrum that is ever-lived by those characters.
Tellingly, ‘those walking away from Omelas’ may seem like round characters. Yet, they are not variable characters because the narration’s focus is not on the identity of those walking away. It is generally about the action of being moral enough to leave a paradise based on a social, moral conundrum. Thus, they are a steady entity seeking to represent a package of ideas.
Themes
Through her short story, Ursula takes the reader into a lake full of bewildering philosophical questions. This is apparent when analysing the themes endowed in this fiction, highlighting philosophical moral dilemmas and conundrums following distinguished philosophical questioning styles.
The Concept of ‘Scapegoat’
The most prominent theme is undoubtedly the reinforced sacrifice for the social common good. The child was a scapegoat whose blood was the one sustaining the property of Omelas. Not that she did want to sacrifice herself, but she was just forced to stay where she is, while having her misery justified by the public. This theme may reflect the marginalised groups and classes who are squeezed to feed others who, by turn, justify their wretch differently.
The Morality Conundrum
The fact prevailing in Omelas is a concoction of tranquillity and horror. Potentially, every debut reader of this fiction may have thought at the beginning that Le Guin is writing a Utopian story such as that of More or one that is based on Plato’s Republic. To our surprise, the author revealed the secret of that content society, which was astonishing. This was to embody the so-called ‘Trolley Problem’ coined by Philippa Foot (1967), which tackles the difference between intending harm and foreseeing harm as a result of an action.
Individual Morality
This theme was embodied in the ones walking away from Orelas as the happiness based on injustice was bland for them. They reflect the notion of thinking rationally to sort out a moral difficulty while ignoring public opinion. The author may have wanted to promote the idea that morals are known by what others do, but one may realise them objectively, considering that they are a universal entity.
A Critical Approach
As cited in the introduction, literary work not only does literary work prompts critique but is also based on one. The author seems to have started her work as criticism targeting the utopian approaches. That is to say, revealing the missing puzzle from that happiness long shadowed throughout happy stories and fairy tales.
This fiction aims to erase those notions brought about by Utopian writers. Starting with ones like Plato, who furnished the ground for further works based on an ideal perfect society. So is the case for newer writers like More, who reflected his simple vision of how uncomplex it is to create a proper community.
Le Guin’s work is a masterpiece, and few are those who may criticise her. Yet, what may every reader agree on is that her work needed to be longer, further elucidating the philosophical questions posed. Not only that, but her work would have been more expressive should she have opted for diversified round characters to incorporate more philosophical approaches and points of view.
Synopsis
Le Guin’s oeuvre will always echo how remarkable she was, particularly her short story ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’. In that fiction, she has addressed one of the most prevailing philosophical issues in our time. Her perception was drawn through the happy dwellers of Omelas, the child, and the one who left the town. These are a very accurate animation of what happens in society at this very time.
The cultural aspect was never absent from Len Guin’s short story. The concept of ‘scapegoat’ reflects how cultures and civilisations think of others. How they cannot feel the agony as long as they are not living it, and thus, it becomes much easier for them to justify any situation experienced by others.
References
Foot, P. (1967). The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect. Oxford Review, 5, 5–15.
Kant, I. (1785). Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals. Cambridge University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1843). Either/Or. Princeton University Press.
Le Guin, U. K. (n.d.). Biography. Ursula K. Le Guin's Website. Retrieved from http://www.ursulakleguin.com
Mill, J. S. (1859). On liberty. Penguin Classics.
Nietzsche, F. (1883). Thus spoke Zarathustra. Penguin Classics.
Sartre, J. P. (1943). Being and nothingness. Washington Square Press.