I love Ursula LeGuin to bits (in three languages) - the shelf is (part of the) proof. But I never got the excitement about "The Ones Who Walks Away from Omelas".
I know what the story, the metaphor tries to say. But all that I see is how this is a story about walking away. Not stay and change: be the change, start the change, convince the others that things need to be better. But a story about keeping one's conscience clean and walking away. And the injustice left behind continues.
@CharleneTeglia I'm glad I talked about it here because I always felt like I'm alone. I clearly am not 😊
(Never got to read Narnia as a kid and as a grown up read enough about the author to nope out really hard... I do know what you mean though, I did read the summary at some point and... nope.)
@vicgrinberg
To me, that story was about, if you can see the injustice in a system, and you feel powerless to change it, you can choose not to participate.
To me, that was the message, that by ignoring an injustice, one becomes complicit in its execution.
I'm quite sure you know all that, but it spoke to me.
@Fragarach thank you for describing whay the story means to you!
I get this point, too. But my problem is then the walking away. That's where the metaphor breaks for me. Because just not participating, quietly, is not enough to change.
@thomasconnor I've read the one or other about over the years, but none of the above ones, thanks! N. K. Jemisin seems to have had thought similar to mine!
@vicgrinberg Omelas has always struck me because of how opposite it is to The Dispossessed in that regard, despite Le Guin having written them within a year of one another.
@michael_w_busch I have never thought about the timeline of writing the two, but yes ...! And Iove Dispossessed a ton - at a point in my life I had four different editions, but only have two left now :)
@vicgrinberg I’ve always liked that story because there are so many narratives about staying and fighting for change. Which is good and important. But sometimes one can’t. It’s good to think about what walking away means.
@IcooIey yeah, I get that! Such stories are important! Done that often in my life and do think it's often crucial (and we often don't do it enough and end up fighting too many battles). But I feel like the story does not discuss that? If that were the focus, I'd rather expect it to focus on why walk away and what it means etc.
And in any way, cool to see how different folks interpret the story! Thank you for commenting!
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