Hi readers, on Day 3 of our Read/Write Challenge we take a look at “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” by Ursula Le Guin. There is so much going on here! I had a hard time choosing just one feature to discuss.
One Thing (Okay, Three Things) I Noticed: The story defies genre. It describes Omelas, a beautiful town on a sparkling bay, surrounded by majestic mountains, and inhabited by a peaceful people with rich traditions and a seemingly perfect life. It is speculative fiction, in a “what if,” sense, but not true sci-fi or fantasy. It has elements of magical realism and fairy tales, but those don’t seem quite right either. Omelas is a place without government, war, political struggle, or poverty. But there is just one thing. The town has a dirty little secret that makes all of that possible. It is revealed to us–though we know it already–that privilege like this is built on a foundation of injustice.
The story also demonstrates the power of naming things. This is not “once upon a time there was a town.” It has a proper name, Omelas (fun fact, Le Guin came up with the name while looking at a sign for Salem, Oregon, in her rear-view mirror). So do the Green Fields and the Eighteen Peaks. Names make a place come to life. They evoke many things. Most of all, they tell us what features of this place the inhabitants find important.
Finally, this is a great example of metafiction, “a form of literature that emphasizes its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are reading or viewing a fictional world.” Le Guin wants to paint a picture of a certain kind of place. She gives her readers some options here. Maybe the town is like this. Or maybe it is like this. Maybe the people do this, or maybe they do this, or this, instead. She invites us to incorporate whichever of these details do the trick for us as readers. By doing this, she reminds us that the place is not real-real. It can’t be, because she hasn’t told us its horrible truth. Le Guin then addresses us directly, asking if that terrible piece of information doesn’t make the place more credible in our minds. And it does. Le Guin achieves something powerful here. We are no longer innocent bystanders. In a way, we have helped her construct this world, from our own experiences. We are complicit.
One Idea: Write a story in which you describe a place, person, or event in different ways, addressing the reader directly and leaving it to him or her to decide which details ring true, which best serve the story.
I hope you enjoyed our first two weekend stories! See you tomorrow for more weekday writing!