Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” was first published in 1973 in New Dimensions 3 and has been published in many anthologies since. When it appeared for the second time in 1975 as part of her short story collection The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Le Guin added a two page preface in…
Category: Literature
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Setting
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas was first published in 1973 in New Directions 3. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of enormous political, social, and cultural upheaval in the United States, and most likely the events of this period influenced Le Guin’s writing of the story. America’s involvement in the…
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Literary Devices
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is the story of Omelas, a city where everyone seems to be happy and to live in peace and harmony. Toward the end of the story, however, the narrator reveals that the happiness of Omelas is dependent on the existence of a child who is locked in a…
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Themes
Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic short story is of a Utopian society whose survival depends on the existence of a child who is locked in a small room and mistreated. Although all of the citizens of Omelas are aware of the child’s situation, most of them accept that their happiness is dependent on the child’s…
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Characters
The Child The child, whose existence is revealed toward the end of the story, is abused and mistreated so the other citizens of Omelas can live in prosperity and happiness. Locked in a small room or closet with no windows, the child is dirty, naked, and malnourished. It receives only half a bowl of corn…
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Summary
Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic short story opens as the celebration of the Festival of Summer is getting underway in the city of Omelas. There is an air of genuine excitement about the festival, with its flag-adorned boats, noisy running children, prancing horses, and “great joyous clanging of the bells.” The narrator, who never identifies…
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge – Literary Elements / Devices
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce centers on Peyton Farquhar, a southern farmer about to be hanged by the Union army for attempting to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. As he stands with the noose around his neck, Farquhar imagines that the rope breaks and he escapes. At the end…
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge: Themes
Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Southern farmer who is about to be hanged by the Union army for trying to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. While the reader is led to believe he escapes under miraculous circumstances, it is revealed at the end…
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge: Summary
In this short story by Ambrose Bierce, upon a railroad bridge in Alabama, a man is waiting to be hanged. His hands are tied behind his back, and a rope encircles his neck. He stands upon a platform constructed of loose boards. Members of the Federal Army—the Union Army during the Civil War—are also on…
The Monkey’s Paw – Analysis
The English author W. W. Jacobs did most of his writing in a fifteen-year period around the turn of the twentieth century. Many of his stories were lighthearted tales about life on the English waterfront. But “The Monkey’s Paw,” first published in 1902 in a collection called The Lady of the Barge deals with the…