While reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin, we can observe at first instance that the author uses a lot of descriptive imagery to make the reader a sensation of being physically there. On the first page, through all the imagery we can see that Omelas is going through a festive time with parades, decorated horses and a very natural and calming setting. Yet towards the last paragraph of the first page we begin to obtain another perspective of the individuals of Omelas. Le Guin began to describe how even though it was a joyful moment, people in reality had begun to lose the real feeling and sensation of happiness, and thus all their superficial joy was unreal and the tradition archaic. After the second page I did notice that Le Guin began to use less imagery and it began to get more confusing, to me it seemed as if there was some type of internal conflict of the narrator. I was extremely surprised to read that in a basement they held a child locked, and especially how Le Guin used imagery once again to emphasize the horrible living conditions. By this literary device I felt a sense of darkness and grieve. It was even more surprising to read that citizens of Omelas did this as a tradition and how this action gave them intelligence and good fortune. Overall in this story Le Guin used imagery to portray the overall important actions which at times seemed to be full of paradox.

The Day Before the Revolution also by Le Guin contained a vast amount of imagery throughout the story. I found this story very confusing at first and had to re-read it various times, but I was able to understand how Le Guin transition between scenes such as shown on the top of page two. It begins with a dream and the last paragraph ends by stating “She feared to fall, to fall, she stopped” but the following paragraphs begins with descriptions of the surroundings around her sleeping body such as the “Sun, bright morning-glare.” We gain a perspective of her dream yet also of her surroundings and I also noticed how she loved her husband Taviri through his constant mention throughout the story and how he was described. Le Guin keep transitioning between her past and present and comparing both for example on the second paragraph of page four the following is mentioned “they had grown up in the principle of freedom of dress and sex and all the rest, she hadn’t. All she had done was invent it.” In this sentence we can see how she was very liberal and lived her life as well as taking part in a social movement in her early years yet the new generation consider the freedom of dress and sex to be a principle of theirs, not knowing that this old lady had done this and much more. Then we learn about her letters which were written during her time in prison which she used to let her emotions out and be able to move on, yet people were taking it as an interpretation of “spiritual strength”. While reading the short story I started to notice how Le Guin portrayed her as an old woman whom is poor and is physically not well, yet as the story progresses and we gain a glimpse of her past and everything she had to go through. This made me think of how things are not always as they seem.

In Le Guin’s, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, I was surprised and liked how the author chose to start off by describing the setting of the story. Not only did it provide a great imagery of the introduction, but it also gives us a basis of the feeling of the story. It gives the reader a sense that the setting of the story is quite peaceful and lively and happy with the Festival going on and with children casually playing around. The narrator of the story is so happy and joyful, he doesn’t even know how to describe his own townspeople or fellow citizens(third to last line of first page). As I read into the second page of the story, its tone sounds completely different from the start and it surprises me. I’m not sure if it was the authors intention on throwing us off by starting off with this happy and joyful place but then showing off the dark side of these people. “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 line is where it starts to confuse me and shocks me  on how the people of this town really are. I think one of the ideas that this story is trying to express is the idea of an utopia or their definition of a utopia. The author writes about how there are no specific rules, no stock exchange, advertisement, secret police and etc. Le Guin also adds to this idea of a peaceful utopia is that they have no use of violence. no swords, no slaves, and not barbarians. Although the narrator seems to be a spectator and not a citizen of this society, the ideas of this society seem to be obvious and well known.

Like in Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, his other story “The Day Before the Revolution” start off similar by talking about the setting and giving us a brief imagery of the scene. In the third page of the story, I got confused if there was a transition from the scene in the beginning to the third page, and i thought it was a flashback at first. The first sentence from the third paragraph really intrigued me, “The Toes, compressed by a liofetime of cheap shoes, were almost square where they touched each other, and bulged out above in corns; the nails were discolored and shapeless.” This really grabs my attention because in one sentence, the author describes the character in many ways. It tells us that the main character has gone through tough times and perhaps living a life of poverty to some extent. The author also provides us with a lot of imagery of the main character. The character describes herself as disgusting, sad and depressing and this really gives us the feeling that the character is disorganized and not confident with herself. I liked this because it got me brainstorming on how the actual plot will go. The language and style of writing in this story was a lot harder than in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.”

After reading “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin I spent a lot of time thinking about how society functions and Le Guins idea of a utopian society.  The author viewed a utopian society as one that is drug free, government free, law free and everyone is happy. Guin mentions often in his view of a utopian society where everyone is nude. I believe he used this as a symbol of being completely free of any government or laws. I imagined the society to visually be a futuristic medieval times type of design where there is no technology but the buildings themselves are futuristic in today’s standards.  However, in one of these buildings the author describes a child. This child is described to be all dirty and bruised from sitting in his or her own feces.  The child is nude like everyone else but they are very dirty and not visually appealing like everyone else.  In the story it is said that the child was neglected growing up and therefore he turned out like this.  I believe that this symbolizes what a bad environment can lead to in today’s world.  If a kid today is brought up in a broken family that is addicted to all of life’s vices, then they will turn up like that and be the very opposite of a utopian society. At the end the author describes people leaving the city of Omelas and not returning. I believe that this symbolizes that even though society is perfect, people still won’t like it and therefore you cannot satisfy everyone.  Maybe the child mentioned is a result of what you return as when you leave Omelas. I also read another piece that is in relation to “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” and it was entitled “The Day before Revolution” which was also written by the same author. In the prelude for the reading, the author immediately mentions that this piece was about someone who left Omelas. In my opinion this person is lead to be the protagonist who doesn’t have a name. The setting of the story is in the middle of a rebellion which in my opinion could potentially be the climax so to speak in a road to get to the people’s eyes of a utopia. The protagonist lost her husband Taviri to this rebellion. The protagonist then grows old and is unable to take care of herself and I feel that she sort of lost this will power when her husband died. The protagonist maybe believes that her own utopia would have to include her husband and she cannot have one without him. This story tended to jump all over the place and include a lot of detail that did not provide any detail to the story. You really have to dig deep to see how this even can be viewed as a story for utopian societies. Also the author doesn’t mention Omelas at all besides the prelude.

 Reading Ursula Le Guin’s stories I had a very clear picture of what was going on. Whatever the setting was I can imagine it as if I was remembering a scene from a movie. Comparing her stories “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “The Day Before the Revolution” I realize how different they are. I enjoyed more “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” it had a very pleasant setting, with every one being happy and living to enjoy life. Le Guin introduces the story with the Festival of Summer which I pictured as a Southern Party from the 1850’s. In the eyes of the people it was perfect, they found a way to erase a horrible secret and bury it in order to live a happily ever after life. Reading the beginning of the story and hearing about this wonderful place I began to imagine what would be like living there and how it would be nice to live there, but when the part of the little boy came my mood about this perfect life changed completely. I started feeling pity and anger, I even started feeling very protective of this imaginative innocent child. I could not imagine how the people in this story could go and see him like it was part of a ritual into adulthood and go on with their happy without doing anything. In my opinion if someone can live with that they don’t deserve to be happy. and I believe that I were in this story I would be one of the people who leave the town and live a hard life then to live on a good one at the cost of someone’s a child’s suffering.

 “The Day Before the Revolution” didn’t capture my interest as much. Although I also was able to easily picture the scenes in my head I wasn’t able to obtain (I guess you can say) the emotional connection that I had with the previous story. This had more of a dystopian setting, with the citizens wanting to revolt again their higher authority, it seemed like a place of chaos. Where the law enforcement was taking advantage of their power and people were fighting back. Abuse and violence everywhere. I think it was a little too out of control, so much that the main character, Laia believed that the new generation was fighting for a reason that was not originally planned for the revolution. After her husband died, she lost interest in fighting for the cause and she became nothing more than a piece in a historical museum until she had enough and gave in into “falling.” They were very interesting stories, both with an unexpected twist and I have a good feeling that the other stories by Ursula Le Guin were just as interesting and captivating as “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “The Day Before the Revolution.”

After reading The Day Before the Revolution for the first time my mind was all over the place. I had no idea of what to make of this story. It took me awhile to finish this reading because I wasn’t focusing on it. I felt it was way too long and just flat out confusing especially all the different names. While reading I caught myself just looking at the words and not grasping/ paying attention to them and I was not understanding what I was reading.  I then read this story over again and got somewhat of a better understanding. I felt the imagery Le Guin used was great. From the details in the story I was able to picture the different peoples appearances  ex : “(an old woman with grey hair . . . in a slum, muttering to herself)” Le Guin page 12.  I imagined an old lady sitting on a dirty city street. I also imagined a very gloomy setting wherever the old lady went almost like a dark cloud on top of her. I think that the old lady wanted to preserve the area around her in which she was so used to and to keep everything the same as it always was even as she is getting older and older and all she is doing is just reminiscing on the past when she was younger and how everything used to be. I still didn’t fully understand the whole meaning this story is trying to give off but I think it can be interpreted in different ways. I feel that adding other names and places confused me and it was hard to try and change back and forth on who Le Guin was writing about. I think the main focus of this story should have been only about the old lady’s life and not other people because I was at times unsure with who is who. One part of the story I felt was interesting was the quotation “(courage – what was courage? . . . not fearing, some said. Fearing yet going on)” Le Guin page 6. This part really made me think about how there are many different meanings of words and its just based on how you interpret it.  I would think that this story is a utopia because of how the old lady lived and wanted everything to be the way it was for example: being with her husband. I think that shows this story is a utopia because that was her perfect world, her husband being alive.

From reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas I can say that Le Guin is good at using adjectives and imagery to enable the reader to imagine or put themselves in that setting. This story also confused me. Le Guin didnt actually give any specific names of people, but just kept repeating “they”,  “he”, “the child” . I wanted to try and place a character in the situation because I was able to clearly picture where and how this story was taking place. On the first page Le Guin described the Festival of Summer which led me to believe it was a happy place where everyone of Omelas came together and celebrated. After continuing reading Le Guin writes about the child who is locked in the basement. I didnt like this at all because the child was being referred to as “it” and because that Le Guin really enables the reader to picture how everything looks really made me feel bad for the child and the harsh living conditions. I felt this was weird because to what I thought, the first page was described as a happy place with “a cheerful faint sweetness of the air”. I think that this story was an example of a dystopia because although in the beginning of the story it was described as what I thought was good environment, Le Guin added the element of the child locked in the basement with a rusty bucket and dirty floors. Le Guin writes that perhaps the child was born defective with feelings of fear and neglect. I think that can maybe be a dystopia because in the real world its okay if a person may have some type of defect or disability and they are still equal to any other person. But, in Omelas where I interpreted as a “perfect sounding” world the child added almost a feeling of negativity. (which in my opinion is wrong) The element of the child in this story really made me dislike it.