The ones who walk away from omelas’ Questions PDF

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General responses to Omela Questions...

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The ones who walk away from omelas’ Questions Who are the ones who walk away from Omelas? Why do they leave? And why go alone? Is it a brave act or something else? Why do some people stay? What do you think of those who stay? Have you ever made a decision to walk away from Omelas? What happened? How does Omelas resemble our current society, if at all? Do we have “a suffering child” on whom our lives depend? 1) How would you describe the city of Omelas? What do we know about it from the opening pages? “With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea” The city of Omelas is a prosperous city, full of happiness and is essentially a perfect utopia. There are no problems and no complications and is introduced as a very rich and perfect place to be. 2) Why does the narrator think seem to doubt that we will believe in and accept the description of “the festival, the city, the joy”? Utopias are essentially impossible to achieve. There are generally sacrifices that have to be made or something dystopic happening in the background functioning in a Utopic society. As a result, the narrator has doubt about the authenticity of the town of Omelas and questions their festivals and its joy. 3) What is the “function” of the suffering child? It allows the rest of the city to be free and to be a utopic society. 4) Why do the people of Omelas understood that the child “has to be there”? “Some of them understand why, and some do not, but 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 harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” The understand because the basis of their society depends upon his misery and suffering, and that they are powerless to help the child, without destroying the utopia. 5) How and when do they explain the suffering child to their children? How do the children respond?

“This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child” This concept is explained at an age when a child is mature enough to understand this issue. The children respond when they come to visit the locked child, when they become adults....