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lethargicbat's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Excrement, Kidnapping, and Abandonment
Minor: Sexual content and Alcohol
emfass's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
An absolute emotional wallop of a short story. What does utopia/a good life cost, and are we willing to pay that cost? What do we do, who are we, when we've been shown the dark underbelly of our world?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Torture, Forced institutionalization, and Abandonment
Minor: Sexual content and Excrement
latibluee's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
beautifully haunting
the type of story that will nestle itself in your mind and you will keep idly thinking about it days, weeks, maybe even months or years after you've read it - even though it is only 5 pages long (or maybe partly due to that fact?)
the type of story that will nestle itself in your mind and you will keep idly thinking about it days, weeks, maybe even months or years after you've read it - even though it is only 5 pages long (or maybe partly due to that fact?)
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children – though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better.
The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world’s summer; this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life.
Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness.
At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. [...] Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Confinement
Minor: Sexual content, Excrement, and Alcohol
susirecio's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I loved the idea behind the story but I did not enjoy at all the way it was written. It felt too dirty to me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Minor: Drug use and Sexual content
thatone2112's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse
Minor: Sexual content
minou_noir's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I have no words to describe what I'm feeling right now.
This short story is almost 30 pages but the impact it has will haunt you for more than the next 30 years of your life. It's a question posed as a story, where the writer Ursula asks us this: would we let a small innocent child live a lonely and tormented life, if the happiness and prosperity of thousands of people depended on the way he is treated? Does inflicting harm on an innocent life become justified if more than one person gains something from it?
I would highly recommend reading the book yourself because there's no way I can do justice to the way it makes you feel, using a simple review.
I am left thinking if we are living in Omelas, and are voluntarily ignorant of the child in the closet; or if we are the ones who walked away from Omelas, and are living a sad life but feel superior to the ones who stayed because we do not have that guilt on our shoulders.
It might be easy to say that we wouldn't do that to someone at all. We would side with justice and show compassion; but really, looking around us that feeling fades until it is merely left as a question.
This short story is almost 30 pages but the impact it has will haunt you for more than the next 30 years of your life. It's a question posed as a story, where the writer Ursula asks us this: would we let a small innocent child live a lonely and tormented life, if the happiness and prosperity of thousands of people depended on the way he is treated? Does inflicting harm on an innocent life become justified if more than one person gains something from it?
I would highly recommend reading the book yourself because there's no way I can do justice to the way it makes you feel, using a simple review.
I am left thinking if we are living in Omelas, and are voluntarily ignorant of the child in the closet; or if we are the ones who walked away from Omelas, and are living a sad life but feel superior to the ones who stayed because we do not have that guilt on our shoulders.
It might be easy to say that we wouldn't do that to someone at all. We would side with justice and show compassion; but really, looking around us that feeling fades until it is merely left as a question.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Confinement
Minor: Sexual content
rory_john14's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Confinement, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Drug use and Sexual content
Minor: Physical abuse and Excrement
mermaidstears's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I felt a little underwhelmed by this. Maybe because i didn't find the idea all that profound and had probably thought of this moral dilemma before. however, that doesn't take away from the great writing and the way the question is proposed to you. I did find the mentions of child nudity so so unnecessary.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Minor: Sexual content
deey3z's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism
Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual content
chrisljm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Confinement, Torture, Excrement, and Abandonment
Minor: Sexual content