Talk:The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Rating
Very good summary of a very short story. --Sludge 03:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC) No references=start


 * Are you kidding me?
 * More like a terrible summary by a person who both never read the story and never quite mastered the language (and punctuation). I had to clean it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.163.232.237 (talk) 04:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Salem?
Why is this article in the Salem, Oregon category? 212.179.71.70 12:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In the article it says "Le Guin hit upon the name of the town on seeing a road sign for Salem, Oregon, in a car mirror. "[... People ask me] 'Where do you get your ideas from, Ms. Le Guin?' From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?"" Katr67 19:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Although the name of the story has a tangental reference to Oregon, it seems a bit much to tag it as part of project Oregon. Am I really off-base here?--Npd2983 (talk) 22:50, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Le Guin is also an Oregon author and their works often get added to WP:ORE. We do a pretty good job watching over Oregon-related articles, so usually the tag is a net gain for an article. But I'm not particularly invested in it one way or the other. Why the concern? Valfontis (talk) 02:23, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Who wrote the TERRIBLE summary?
No plot, NO CHARACTERS? What about the little girl, is that NOT A CHARACTER (or the the children, women, men, etc)? Sure, all of those were somewhat abstract but they certainly HAD PRESENCE (not to mention those who did the walking away part).

And of course, the story had plot. And a very powerful one at that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.163.232.237 (talk) 04:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree. It can be seen as essentially a description of a what-if scenario. Do encyclopedia entries have a plot? Does a philosophical essay have one? To me, "Omelas" is a philosophical description without a plot. 200.0.230.235 (talk) 20:21, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The damned child is not a little girl. Ursula goes out of her way to not give any details. We do not even know that the child is little – it is thin, but maybe it is tall. I would say it is a character, but I wouldn't say that there is really a plot there. It is just a long description of things that happen regularly in a city, and nothing ever changes – even the people who walk away are just a regular occurrence. The child's growing is the only thing that really changes, since it used to cry for help and now doesn't anymore, but that is a very small change, and we are merely told it happens rather than being shown it happening. If we were shown what happens as the child grows, or how is it that it was put there, or something, that would be a plot, but we are just given a description of a state of affairs, with no past or future. You may imagine those, but they are not shown in the story. 179.98.225.10 (talk) 17:58, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * In that case, it's not actually a short story then, is it ? Short stories have a plot ... someone should change the lead sentence, perhaps :) 203.160.71.90 (talk) 16:31, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My first thought on reading the scenario is that the story would only begin when one of the walk-aways comes back.Shtove (talk) 11:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Assessment
This article borders on a Stub/Start class. I am being generous in demoting it from C class to Start. Specifically the article needs additional in-line citations and more detail (plot summary and character list) to be a solid Start class. I am not going to "litter" the article with reference needed banners for now. Beyond that it would need a good bit of information on Literary Criticism and significance to attain a bonafide C class. I will likely upgrade the article content persionally. Feedback and comments are welcome.--Npd2983 (talk) 22:50, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Star Whale
Any indication that this short story was referenced in The Beast Below, in which each member of the colony must decide whether to know the truth about the tortured Star Whale upon coming of age? Llamabr (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

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