The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas compared to the Lottery

A detailed Summary of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas compared to the Lottery

When driving, two roads can be completely different, one possessing steep hills and sharp turns and the other being relatively flat in grade and strait in its direction, and still bring you to the same location. In literature, two stories can be written on completely different subjects, one containing a narrative of the murdering of a woman in contemporary America by lottery and the other giving the chronicle of torture in a mystical fairy-tale like society of an innocent child, both delivering your mind to the same final thoughts. This is the case for the two short stories "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin. These two stories are told in quite different contexts; yet their theme of a single person taking on the burdens of society to allow the rest of the culture to live in happiness and the devices used to arrive at this theme are strikingly similar.

Both of the stories begin with a warming description of a beautiful summer day. "Fresh warmth.... The flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green" (Jackson pg 1) in "The Lottery" is similar to "Bright air.....great water meadow.....moss grown gardens under avenu

The theme that is presented through enactments of these savage traditions is that one person must pay for the utopia of the rest of society. In "...Omelas" it is made clearly evident that the sacrifice of the child is the hinge upon which the society swings.

The job of this child is to take upon itself, through its suffering, all of the evil in civilization. As stated in the story, they did not war, they had few rules, no monarchs, and no inequality. Because of this their society functioned as a utopia. With the majority living fulfilled joyous lives knowing at the same time that the reason they lived without evil was because of the single malicious act laid on one being.

Although the exact reasons for the traditions are marginally different in each story, they are both done for the continuance of their respective societies, and they are both incredibly vicious. In "The Lottery," the person in which society lays its burdens upon is chosen each June by a drawing of paper slips. The person that draws the only slip that does not posses blankness is then stoned to death by their entire town, including their friends, siblings, significant others, and children. In "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," the yoke of the civilization is laid upon a single child. The child, whether boy or girl, has been placed in a dark cellar since early childhood, and is besieged by constant malnutrition, lack of social contact, and the foulness of sitting in its own fecal matter to the point of retardation.

Another relation to theme is also oddly similar in both of these stories; both stories have members of their respective societies that do not feel the sacrifice of humans is wor

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Approximate Word count = 1139
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English