Mike:
I get a better picture now...thanks. Madalyn
At 10:30 AM 5/6/97 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tue, 6 May 1997, Robin Gordon wrote:
>
>> While I'm ashamed to say I've never read The Ones Who Walk Away, from
>> descriptions I've heard many times over, it sounds very similar to a
>> wonderful short film I saw way back in high school, called The Lottery.
>> The premise was an idyllic (utopian) town, and once a year the citizens
>> took part in a lottery, by which one person was selected and then stoned
>> by the other citizens. The theme of the film was the way in which the
>> brutal violence of the lottery was an outlet for agression and violence
>> and injustice, without which the town's utopian life would not be
>> possible.
>>
>> Robin Gordon
>>
>"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and "The Lottery" (which was a great
>story by Shirley Jackson before it was turned into a pretty good film)
>are similar in that they book involve the concept of scapegoating, the
>idea that by heaping suffering on one person, we therefore magically
>evade it ourselves or, more realistically, at least avoid having to feel
>guilty. Scapegoating is something human beings do all the time. Jesus was
>a scapegoat. So were the Jews in WWII. So are so-called Welfare Queens today.
>
>"Omelas" is a parable and should not be read as a realistic story. Le
>Guin is playing around with the old idea about "the greatest good for the
>greatest number" and taking it to its logical extreme. What if,
>magically, all the evil in the world could be heaped on one person and
>everyone else could be happy. Would it be worthwhile or would the
>injustice done to that one probably retarded child outway the good of all
>the rest. The ones who "walk away" are buying out of the system,
>refusing to accept their own happiness if it comes at the expense of
>someone else. On one level the story can be read as a parable about the
>western world living off the suffering of the third world. On another
>level it can be read as a parable about our society's refusal to accept
>the legitimacy of the plight of the poor.
>
>Several writers have commented on the ironic fact that, while the people
>walk away from Omelas, and refuse to benefit from the child's suffering,
>they make no apparent effort to help the child. In effect, they opt out
>of the system, but don't try to fix it.
>
>Mike Levy
>
>
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