Similarities Between The Ones Who Walks Away From Omelas And The Lottery

“The Lottery” (1948) is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. “The Ones Who Walks Away from Omelas” (1976) is a short story written by Ursula K. Le Guin. In both stories the groups of adults living in these two different yet strangely familiar settings have the same central idea of living by strict traditional values (or rules) but also having a reluctant acceptance of helplessness against those traditions followed in these two towns “their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed, much tradition as was represented by the black box, began talking about a new box but every year the subject was allowed to fade off” (Jackson 625-626) and “They feel disgust, they feel anger, outrage, impotence. They would like to

In Jackson’s story, the narrator is extremely matter of fact about the events that unfold in the story. As opposed to letting us know the characters' considerations or emotions, the storyteller basically demonstrates the procedure of the lottery spreading out. This further underlines the stunning way of the consummation, as our exclusive signs of the lottery's actual reason originate from the villagers' apprehensive behavior, instead of from knowledge into their musings. However, in Le Guin’s story the general population or society plays as the main character as the point of view is in first person but asks us to imagine what Omelas would be and tells us about Omelas unemotionally “As you like, If so, please add an orgy” (815). In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” the reader is thrown into a seemingly unbelievable world where the people’s total and incorruptible happiness, one that is “no vapid, irresponsible happiness,” (Le Guin 458) is due completely to the dismal existence of one malnourished, mistreated little boy. The people of Omelas must come to understand that if they help the boy, they will condemn their beautiful city to a quick demise. They either accept this fact, or they walk away from