|
Have questions?
Contact us
Already a member? Sign in
|
Get every literary device explanation for The Ones Who Walk Away from OmelasPlus so much more...
Sign up for LitCharts A+Get instant access to every literary device explanation, plus so much more...
Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—I Will Be Good:
The narrator appeals to the reader’s sense of pathos as they describe the pitiful sounds the imprisoned scapegoat child makes. The auditory imagery of this harrowing passage brings the tortured child’s ordeal to life for the reader:
The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often.
This passage makes the reader feel complicit in listening to the scapegoat child's desperate pleas and the utter neglect it faces. The child’s remembered experiences of sunlight and its mother’s voice make the darkness and isolation it’s forced to live in feel far worse. It has known happiness but is now utterly alone and unloved. Part of the appeal to pathos here also comes from the fact that the child’s imprisonment is never explained to it: it begs to be released, promising it "will be good" and screaming for help. Because it doesn’t know why it has been imprisoned, it tries anything it can to make its jailers let it out. The sounds of the child's diminishing pleas and its shift from screaming to the weak, plaintive whining "eh-haa, eh-haa" are rendered in painfully detailed, realistic language. These sounds, especially in the way they hopelessly decline, make the cruelty afoot in Omelas all the more immediate and distressing for the reader.
Monthly
Annual (Best Value)
$595USD/mo
Charged $71.40 USD every year
Teacher$795USD/mo
Charged $95.40 USD every year
Literature Guide PDFs
LitCharts PDFs for every book you'll read this year.
Instant PDF downloads of all 2238 LitCharts literature guides and of every new one we publish. Try a free sample literature guide.
"Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!"
Quotes Explanations
Find the perfect quote. Understand it perfectly. Then rock the citation, too.
For all 49,919 quotes we cover.
For all 49,919 quotes we cover.
Teacher Editions
Close reading made easy for students.
Time saved for teachers.
For every book we cover.
Time saved for teachers.
For every book we cover.
Common Core-aligned
PDFs of modern translations of every one of Shakespeare's 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 3 longer poems.
Literary Terms and Devices
Definitions and examples for every literary term and device you need to know.
Plus a quick-reference PDF with concise definitions of all 136 terms in one place.
Plus a quick-reference PDF with concise definitions of all 136 terms in one place.
Try a free sample literary term PDF.
Advanced Search
Refine any search. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more.
Related Themes
Comparing and contrasting texts? Find where any theme occurs across all of LitCharts in seconds.
Poetry Guides
Line-by-line explanations and analysis of figurative language and poetic devices.
For every lyric poem we cover.
For every lyric poem we cover.
