Utopia Essay

1021 Words5 Pages
Utopia The narrator in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” paints a picture of a utopian city where the citizens live happy lives. That picture, however, is not the whole story. There is something that is different about this “happy” city. There is a room under the city of Omelas that has a starved, uncared for child locked inside of it. The narrator in “The Lottery” tells of a day in a village where the villagers gather to participate in the lottery. As the drawling of names undergo- the reader is still unknown of what the lottery truly is. When the reader finds out who was chosen, we find out that the person drawn is to be stoned to death. One of the main contrasting aspects of these two short stories is the way the narrator tells about the characters in the stories. The main similarities of the two short stories are: the theme, the tragic overturn, and the mood of the stories. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is told with somewhat of a blind eye. The narrator tells the story without giving the reader characters. The citizens of Omelas seem to be perfect; they are described as mature, happy, and intelligent. There are no slaves or kings in Omelas; everyone is considered equal. “They were not barbarians.” The narrator constantly says the citizens are happy but then gives reason to believe that they are not truly happy in every sense of the word. Then we read the description of the child that is in the cellar. The gender of the child is unknown. “It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten” due to the poor nutrition of the child. It sits in corner farthest from the mops because it fears the mops. As the child sits “it picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes and genitals.” The narrator does not give names of any characters in the short story, unlike in “The Lottery” where the narrator descriptively describes each character, with names,
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