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Dystopian stories are stories about places where there is a lot of suffering.
Common elements:
In this short story, the author, Ursula LeGuin describes the magical city of Omelas
There's one catch, though - in exchange for all the happiness, one child has to suffer :(
Ethical dilemma - what would you do?
Utilitarianism - is one person suffering worth it for the greater good?
Utopia of Omelas with the dystopian twist of the child suffering
A sense of propaganda - normalized ideology that it's ok to let the child suffer
LeGuin uses lots of literary devices in her text - let's have a look at some of them!
Admiring tone & positive mood at the beginning:
"In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.”
Pensive and mysterious tone & negative mood:
"They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”
- The narrator doesn't know everything
"“...but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all.”
LeGuin uses lots of imagery and figurative language in the story.
“The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky.”
Symbolism plays a huge role in this text! Let's have a look at what everything could mean.
“To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.”
An overall successful and very interesting dystopian story that drew attention to moral/ethical issues.
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