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Get every literary device explanation for The Ones Who Walk Away from OmelasPlus so much more...
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Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—White-Gold Fire:
As she sets the scene for the rest of the tale, the author uses visual imagery to emphasize the pristine, mythical quality of the landscape around Omelas. Everything about the city is bright and beautiful, from the “air of morning” its citizens breathe to the distant mountains on the horizon:
The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky.
The visual imagery here gives the reader an impression of Omelas as an enchantingly clean and crisp city. It’s a true utopia, almost supernaturally untouched by grime, crime, or the mess of everyday life. Elements of natural beauty that seem to defy physics can co-exist here: it’s the time of the Summer Festival, but there’s still visible snow on the mountains in the distance. This description of the "snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks" that "burned with white-gold fire" is like a Renaissance painting, conjuring conventional imagery of white and gold, purity and power. This vision of pure snow and golden sunshine under the "dark blue of the sky" is also a striking visual contrast, painting a bold picture for the reader. They are charmed by the beauty and drawn into the fairy-tale setting, which sets the stage for the ethical dilemma at the center of the story. Were Omelas less beautiful and perfect, it would be even more difficult to justify the suffering of the scapegoat child. These descriptions also make the "darkness" outside the city seem even more foreboding.
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