Omelas Essay

774 Words4 Pages
Comparison of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “Lottery”. The differences between "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin seem relatively minor when compared to the striking similarities they contain in the idea, but the dissimilarities that the author is trying to get across to the reader. Each of the stories begin with a description of a utopian society in which the whole town’s happiness is based on sacrificing one persons life. Each story is based upon sacrificing an individual to ensure the happiness of the whole community. Although, the happiness of the townspeople comes at the cost of a single individual that is forced to suffer through a horrific scenario. “They all know it [the child] is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there.” In Omelas a child has been locked in a tiny room and mistreated for a very long time. The people of Omelas accept this as a terrible justice of reality and let the childs’ misery go on. Most of the community accepts that there is one child that must suffer for happiness to exist for everybody else. The townsfolk in “The Lottery” perform a sacrifice yearly as to please a God and hopefully be blessed with a bountiful harvest. Similar to the suffering of the child in Omelas, the town in “The Lottery” also has a horrendous act which they perform upon an individual. “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head.” Each person in the town participates in the sacrifice by throwing a stone at that individual and In each story the author provides examples of places that do not use such violence to ensure the happiness of the community. These other
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