9. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

1. 9. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Edited) Variations on a theme by William James URSULA LE GUIN

2. Objectives • To understand the text • To learn the useful words and phrases • learn about an allegory story

3. Teaching Contents 1. Introduction (10 min.) 2. Detailed study of the text (140 min.) 3. Structure analysis (5 min.) 4. Language appreciation (5 min.) 5. Summary of words and phrases(5 min) 6. Exercises (15 min)

4. 1. Introduction • The author: Ursula K. Le Guin is a well-known science fiction and fantasy writer.

5. Ursula Le Guin • She was born in Berkeley, California in 1929. After graduating from Radcliff College, she took an M.A. degree at Columbia University. Her writings force us to re-examine many of the things that we once took for granted, like our cities, our political and social structures, etc.

6. Ursula Le Guin • She began writing during the 1950s, but not until the ‘60s did she begin publishing. Le Guin’s work has appealed to a wider audience than science fiction fans. Bringing a social scientist’s eye and a feminist’s sensibility to science fiction, she has employed this speculative genre to criticize contemporary civilization.

7. Ursula Le Guin • Many of her stories—like “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” (1974 Hugo Award)—create complex imaginary civilizations, envisioned with anthropological authority. Le Guin has also written poetry and juvenile fiction, including the Earthsea [video-2] trilogy, Wizard of Earthsea [video-2] (1968), The Tombs of Atuan [video-2] (1971), and The Farthest Shore [video-2] (1972), which rank among the classics of modern children’s literature. She lives in Porland, Oregon.

8. Ursula Le Guin • In an interview with Larry McCaffery the author explains why she likes the science fiction form. She says: “Science fiction allows me to help people get out of their cultural skins and into the skins of other beings. In that sense science fiction is just a further extension of what the novel has traditionally been. In most fiction the author tries to get into the skin of another person; in science fiction you are often expected to get into the skin of another person from another culture.

9. William James • (1842-1910) American philosopher

10. William James • He was born New York City and graduated from Harvard University in 1869 with a doctor of Medicine degree. In 1872 he joined the Harvard faculty as a lecturer on anatomy and physiology (生理学), continuing to teach until 1907 (3 years later he died), after 1880 in the department of psychology and philosophy. In 1890 he published his brilliant and epoch-making Principles of Psychology, in which the seeds of his philosophy are already discernible/ perceptive.

11. William James • James’s fascinating style and his broad culture and cosmopolitan outlook made him the most influential American thinker of his day. His philosophy has three principle aspects--his voluntarism, his pragmatism, and his “radical empiricism.”

12. The text • This text is taken from The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. This writing may be called a piece of allegorical description.

13. Allegory（讽喻） in literature, • is a symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual personality, but are embodiments of moral qualities and other abstractions.

14. Allegory • The allegory is closely related to parable /religious teaching story, fable, /animal story, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length. Although allegory is still used by some authors, its popularity as a literary form has declined in favor of a more personal form of symbolic expression.

15. “Omelas” • So "Omelas" 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 outweigh the good of all the rest.

16. 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 understood about the western world living off the suffering of the third world. On another level it can be understood about our society's refusal to accept the legitimacy of the plight of the poor.

17. Note on “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”: • Ursula K. Le Guin once explained in one of her story collection The Wind’s Twelve Quarters

18. The central idea of this psychomyth, the scapegoat, turns up in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and several people have asked me, rather suspiciously, why I gave the credit to William James [video-2] The fact is, I haven’t been able to re-read Dostoyevsky, much as I loved him, since I was twenty-five, and I’d simply forgotten he used the idea. But when I met it in James’s “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life” it was with a shock of recognition….

19. Of course I didn’t read James and sit down and say, Now I’ll write a story about that “lost soul.” It seldom works that simply. I sat down and started a story, just because I felt like it, with nothing but the word “Omelas” in mind. It came from a road sign: Salem (Oregon) backwards…. Salem … equals Peace. Melas. O melas. Omelas. “Where do you get your ideas from, Ms Le Guin?” From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?

20. The general idea of the text: In this allegorical writing, Le Guin brings up a rather provocative theme, the nature of happiness and on what it depends. In the beginning, Le Guin fashions a utopian city, Omelas. It is celebrating the Festival of Summer. There is an air of excitement throughout the city with its clanging bells, flag-adorned boats, beautiful buildings and joyful processions.

21. People march in procession to watch a horse race, which will begin very soon. Then Le Guin comments indirectly on the people of Omelas to convince that they are not simple but happy. According to her, their happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. They do without monarchy, slavery, or any commercial, political or military institution. There is no guilt in Omelas. People live a happy life which they love earnestly.

22. However, Le Guin discloses the truth of Omelas’ happiness shortly, which shocks the readers. In a cellar in Omelas a child has been locked in a tiny room and mistreated for a very long time. All the happiness of Omelas is based on its suffering. The people of Omelas accept this as a terrible justice of reality and let the child’s misery go on.

23. By this sharp contrast between the former happiness and the present cruelty, Le Guin draws the attention upon her theme—the nature and basis of happiness—should the happiness of the many be based upon the suffering of the few? But she provides no solution except an open, thought-provoking ending that some people leave Omelas after seeing the child.

24. 2. Detailed study of the text • “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”: • In Ursula Le Guin's short story, "The ones who walk away from Omelas", she brings up the idea of the scapegoat who, by living a life of constant suffering, ensures that everyone else in the city of Omelas has the perfect, happy life. "They all know it is there, the people of Omelas...

25. they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvests and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly upon this child's abominable misery."

26. Some people, of course, cannot accept the idea that to free the child would be to let misery into the lives of everyone in Omelas, to let in guilt, even if they accept that the child, ruined by its miserable life, would not be able to understand or indeed survive the free and joyous world outside its cell.

27. These people cannot stand to live dependent on another's misery; they refuse to benefit from the child's suffering, though they make no apparent effort to help the child. In effect, they opt out of the system, and they don’t try to fix it. These are the ones who walk away from Omelas.

28. Omelas is a fictional city of happiness envisaged by the writer. She describes emotionally and colorfully the city of Omelas and its citizens but it is a piece of allegorical description. In reality, however, she discourses on a rather provocative theme–the nature of happiness and on what it depends.

29. What does Ursula Le Guin want to tell us through her story? • Through her story the author wants to shock readers to think again about a philosophical question: could one be happy in a world that provided every perfection one could wish IF it depended on one person living in absolute misery?

30. Variations on a theme by William James: • The text discusses on a theme by William James. The author shows different ideas from William James’ theme concerning happiness and what it is based on.

31. Para.1 • the city of Omelas

32. What does Paragraph 1 describe? • the happy city of Omelas. • Omelas is a port city by the sea with bright towers and houses with red roofs and painted walls. There are tree-lined avenues, moss-grown gardens, great parks and public buildings. Towards the north side of the city there is a great water-meadow called the Green Fields. Far off to the north and west are mountains with snowy peaks half encircling Omelas.

33. The people there were joyously celebrating the Festival of Summer with music, dance and processions. Men, women and children except for the riders who were naked. The highlight of the celebrations was a horse race to be held on the great water-meadow called the Green Fields. So the whole city is immersed in happiness.

34. With a clamor of bells …the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea: • The loud ringing of the bells, which sent the frightened swallows flying high, marks the beginning of the Festival of Summer in Omelas. • bright-towered by the sea: Omelas is a port city by/near the sea. It had white towers that shone bright in the sun.

35. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags: • The lines and chains on the ships were decorated with flags which were shining in the sun. • rigging: lines and chains used aboard a ship especially in working sail and supporting masts and spars; the rigging [U]: all the ropes, chains, etc. that hold up a ship’s sails. • e.g. The sailor climbed up the rigging to see if he could sight land.

36. .In the streets … processions moved: • The streets were lined with houses with red roofs and painted walls. Between the houses there were old moss-grown gardens. There were also avenues lined with shady trees. The city had many big parks and public buildings. There were many processions moving through the streets and avenues. • In this long sentence, the main idea “processions moved” is at the end of the sentence. This is a good example of a long periodic sentence (圆周句), preceded by a string of modifiers.  

37. Some were decorous: • old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. Some of these processions were marked by propriety and good taste, because they were made up of old people, grave master workmen and women carrying babies. There were no children or young people among them. • In this long sentence, the main idea is at the beginning. This is an example of a loose sentence (松散句). The writer uses a vast variety of sentence structures.

38. decorous:adj. fml. (of appearance or behavior) correct; showing proper respect for the manners and customs of society. • e.g. Behavior that is decorous is polite and correct and doesn’t offend people. He gave his wife a decorous kiss. Teenage lovers are strolling decorously. mauve:adj. having a pale purple colour. • n.sth. that is mauve is of a pale purple color • e.g. mauve writing paper

39. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance: • In other streets the processions were different. The music was much faster and one could see the glimmering light reflected from gongs and tambourines. The people danced to the music as they moved forward. The whole procession was a dance. • shimmer: shine with a soft tremulous [slightly shaking] light; glimmer

40. Children dodged in and out…over the music and the singing: • The children ran about playfully, now in and now out of the procession. Their high-pitched shouting could be heard clearly above the music and singing like the calls of the swallows flying by overheard.

41. dodge: v. to avoid (sth.) by moving suddenly aside. • e.g. He dodged the falling rock and escaped unhurt. She dodged past me. • infml. to avoid (a responsibility, duty, etc.) by a trick or in some dishonest way • e.g. She somehow managed to dodge all the difficult questions. • dodger: a tax dodger, a draft dodger 逃避服兵役者 • dodge: n. infml. a clever way of avoiding sth. or of deceiving or tricking sb. • a tax doge逃税花招

42. synonyms: avoid, escape, avert, evade, elude • avert: to prevent (sth. unpleasant) from happening e.g. An accident was averted by his quick thinking. • evade: derog. to avoid (esp. a duty or responsibility), esp. using deception e.g. Give me a direct answer and stop evading the issue. • elude: escape from esp. by means of a trick e.g. The fox succeeded in eluding the hunters by running back in the opposite direction.

43. their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights over the music and the singing:a simile flight: rising, settling or flying in a flock

44. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city: • The streets twisted and turned so the processions also twisted and turned as it moved forward to the north side of the city. • wound: past participle of the verb wind to make (one’s way) in a winding or twisting course.

45. where on the great water-meadow … exercised their restive horses before the race: • This is an attributive clause modifying the north side of the city. The main structure of the clause is “where (on the great water-meadow) boys and girls exercised their restive horses before the race.”

46. naked: • This shows the boys and girls were very natural and unsophisticated. They did not feel there was anything wrong in being naked and barefoot.

47. lithe:adj. (esp. of people or animals) able to bend and move easily and gracefully • e.g. the lithe bodies of the dancers exercised their restive horses before the race: put their horses through some exercises because the horses were eager to start and stubbornly resisting the control of the riders

48. restive:stubbornly resisting control; unruly; disobedient; unwilling to keep still or be controlled, nervous • e.g. If you’re restive, you’re impatient, bored, or dissatisfied. The horses are restive tonight; there must be wolves about. The crew were restive and rebellious. restively: adv. restiveness n.

49. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit: • The horses didn’t wear harness but a rope or leather band without bit. • gear: n. the harness for a horse • halter: a rope or leather band fastened round a horse’s head, esp. to lead it • Bit: n. a metal bar, part of a bridle, that is put in the mouth of a horse and used for controlling its movements 马嘴子；马衔

50. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green: • The manes of the horses were also decorated with small silver, gold and green flags.