- DirtyRobot
- Dec 15, 2003
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it was a normally happy sunny day... but Dirty Robot was dirty
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I completely forgot about this. Maybe because no matter how many times I read it, I find it profoundly upsetting. And the more I think about it, the more upset I get. Which is to say it's a pretty stunning little piece of writing.
Though I have to say I actually find the end really uplifting:
quote:Now do you believe them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.
At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman.
Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
The story is "about" (given its title) the ones who walk away, the ones who look at their society, and everything they stand to benefit from staying in it, and say, "Nope, sorry, gently caress this poo poo, not worth it."
I also really love the intro in my edition that talks about where she got the idea for the town/place. It's from a road sign or something in Salem, Oregan, which fits the theme that actually Omelas could be any old place. Also, Omelas = salem, but backwards. That is, it means peace, but backwards. Or it's a kind of homophone for home hélas, which translates to "man, alas."
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Jan 31, 2014 21:26
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