English 1301 with Nikki Slack!

23 responses so far ↓

• 1    Duy Nguyen // Nov 12, 2007 at 8:33 pm

  After reading LeGuin’s piece, I immediately tied “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” with Milgram’s piece “The Perfils of Obedience.” In both pieces, there is a subject being tortured, a normal person who have to do the torturing and a higher force that keep the normal person to continuing the torturing. In Milgram’s piece, the learner is being tortured while the little child locked away was being tormented in LeGuin’s piece. Both had normal people who did the torturing, the teacher and the people of Omelas. They both continue to torture the subject not out of their own will but by a higher force. For the teacher it was the experimenter the told them to continue on with the experiment. While the people of Omelas continue the torturing because there was an invisible force that said the kid needed to be tortured so the city of Omelas can be happy.

• 2    Scott Hensley // Nov 12, 2007 at 8:53 pm

  You could tie this piece to any of the pieces describing a literacy community. Especially Rodriguez’s piece about a second language and how he lost his ability to speak Spanish because he didn’t use it. In this piece they questioned if the child could still speak at all. They justify leaving him locked up saying he wouldn’t know how to interact with the society because he hadn’t participated in it in so long. He lost his ability to be apart of the community and the things that he needed to be able to do to function in it.

• 3    Cass Harper // Nov 12, 2007 at 10:43 pm

  This piece ties in easily with many of our other readings, primarily the one’s that deal the a literacy community or any other community at whole. This is easily related to Rodriguez’s piece on English (or maybe Spanish!) as a second language, and also the recently read unauthorized biography of me.

  I like Duy’s note on how it relates to Perils of Obedience in how it speaks of punishment.

• 4    Matthew Harper // Nov 13, 2007 at 5:22 am

  This text reminds me of most of the texts we have covered but the first one to come to mind was the perils of obedience. This society is told by their culture that in order to gain experience, they must inflict pain on someone unworthy of punishment. Only a few disobey, but none of them try to fix the problem at hand.

• 5    Jason Whittington // Nov 13, 2007 at 8:41 am

  The first thing that comes to mind is “Speech Sounds” by Butler. Both samples are fiction and to me are really far fetched and hard to read. The next comparison that comes to mind is the “Perils of Obediance” by Milgram. In both pieces there are examples of one group of people benefiting from anothers misfortune or mistreatment.

• 6    Erica Llaca // Nov 13, 2007 at 10:03 am

  When I first read this piece the only thing that really came to mind was that this was a place of utopia and I found it boring because there was no flaw until they had introduced the child that had a possible mental illness or physical deformation. When they talked about keeping him in misery for their own personal happiness this piece, I thought, related to the piece “The Perils of Obedience” when they were having to hurt someone else for the sake to test how people would react to another’s suffering. Which I think related a lot to this piece because it’s like this place where you have to sacrifice someone’s happiness for your own.

• 7    Abrego, Chris // Nov 13, 2007 at 9:52 pm

  “The Perils of Obedience” is the first passage that I can think of that can easily be compared to “The Ones That Walk Away From Omelas”. I thought that the Omelas presented in the passage could be compared to a state of mind. Some peoples state of mind is like the town of Omelas, they are happy, alive, free, and joyful. They don’t care if what they do is moral or ethical, as long as thier fountain of joy is flowing. And the child, that everybody in the town knows exists, is sort of a conscience in peoples mind. It is there but some people refuse to belive it and ignore it. But also like in real life, some people relies that the child exists and walk away from that state of mind which is Omelas. This state of mind could also be found in “The Perils Of Obedience”, which would be doing what is told, and ignoring what is personally correct.

• 8    Fili Ramirez // Nov 14, 2007 at 4:06 pm

  Le Guins piece “The Ones who walk Away from Omelas” explains how the people from Omelas depend on a child located in a basement, the child weak and in harsh conditions is the reason why Omelas civilians live so happy and in good conditions. Many people would like to do something for the child but there is nothing they can do. If the child is helped they would loose the way they live or what they have, what came to mind was Spigeleman’s book Maus how the jews knew if they tried to help someone else they would end up loosing getting beatings or even death unlike Vladek who managed to take such risk by helping others. Both the people of Omelas and the Jews had a threat to hold them back the fear of facing such concequences.

• 9    Ana Sanchez // Nov 14, 2007 at 4:08 pm

  “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by LeGuin reminded me of “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez. People who forget the things holding them back from happiness or “fitting in” society. This stories both tell about hiding something you know to better yourself in society, even if it makes you feel miserable inside. Enough to make you forget your first language or to leave a town because you aren’t truly happy.

• 10    Junichi Lockett Jr. // Nov 14, 2007 at 4:09 pm

  When I first read this text I immediately thought the theme of Sacrifice. But as it was discussed it became deeper, because the text really begin to speak to me about the idea of capitalizm and how people can gain their weatlh and stability based the misery and suffering of another group. “The Perils of Obedience” does tie in to this stream of thought. But I truly believe that the author was taking a shot at American society and how we put on the fasade of a dominant and powerful nation with great wealth, but at the same time hide the impoverished conditions of many people who live in this nation. I believe that it was a powerful text that really called for some further thinking.

• 11    Kim George // Nov 14, 2007 at 7:59 pm

  I feel like all the pieces that we have read this semester fit or have a theme at one level or another with every other piece we have read. However, I think it fits most with the Perils of Obedience piece because of striving to find happiness at what cost? It was a hard piece for me to read.

• 12    Kim George // Nov 14, 2007 at 8:01 pm

  Ok this is the third time I am trying to post… I think that all the piece that we have read this semester tie to each other in way or another. There is a common theme to them all. However I think that the Peril piece comes to mind first. Finding happiness at what cost? This piece was very hard for me to read. I may need to read it again to gain some more insight.

• 13    Ana Sanchez // Nov 14, 2007 at 9:19 pm

  This has nothing to due with the blog question…Where is the story that we have to read for tomorrow? I looked in the handout, the Maus packet and the Blair Reader..

• 14    Chelsea Fine // Nov 14, 2007 at 9:31 pm

  After reading LeGuin’s “The One’s Who Walk Away From Omelas”, the first passage that came to mind was Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience.” In each piece, a character is constantly being tortured by other people of the community as a way of receiving some sort of praise or happiness. In both stories, the people that are torturing the character feel “anger… disgust… and that they would like to do something for the child,” but continue to inflict pain in order to keep everyone else in the community happy (Le Guin 781).

• 15    Kate Bowers // Nov 14, 2007 at 9:51 pm

  I think that while LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” can obviously be compared to Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” it can also be compared to Maus. The torture of the child in TOWWAFO can be compared to the persecution of the Jews. It is very difficult for me to believe that all of the Nazis persecuting the Jews were thinking clearly, if even at all; instead I think that they were being thought for. I think they were genuinely of the belief that torturing this group of people would bring about a better society and a better world to live in. This parallels with TOWWAFO because the child was being tortured because the society knew that it must be so in order for them to remain happy.

• 16    michael bemus // Nov 14, 2007 at 10:58 pm

  i think the closest connection there is to be found between “the one’s who walked away from omelas” and something else we have read would be found in Maus. the nonjew people in Maus most certainly were convinced they could not have a happy and successful life with the jews rooming free across europe. just as the people of omela’s could not be happy unless the child was locked away. the only discrepency i could think of is that the people of europe could have left if they wanted to and not have been miserable. but in omelas they could not.

• 17    Jennifer Fornof // Nov 14, 2007 at 11:04 pm

  We have spent so much time on Maus recently that the first thing that comes to mind when finding a piece that connects to LeGuin’s piece would most certainly be Maus. LeGuin pretty much said that in order for Omelas to continue to be the “beautiful” place that it is, the little boy had to be sacrificed. This has a very strong connection to the situations with the Jews. In Maus, The Jews were also sacrificed, against their own will, to preserve the Aryan race. They were hidden from the civilians in the extermination camps, like they had never even existed to begin with. Out of sight out of mind, Just like the little boy in Omelas.

• 18    Christen Ranson // Nov 15, 2007 at 12:02 am

  Most of our class has focused on Maus, so it was easiest to see the connection between it and “the one’s who walked away from omelas”. The theme that connects the two is sacrifice. the jews had to sacrifice many things throughout the holocaust just as the child of omelas. both people sacrificed a great deal to make what seemed to some people a better society and world.

• 19    Louella Lustina // Nov 15, 2007 at 12:23 am

  In class we were discussing how there is no guilt in Omelas and someone pointed out that the people of Omelas may not feel directly responsible for the child being locked up and tortured. In Milgram’s piece i think he mentioned somewhere that the reasons why some people continued with the test were because they were following orders or they weren’t the one directly hurting the other subject. They were putting the responisblilty on someone else which in their minds made everything alright.

• 20    Laura Lopez // Nov 15, 2007 at 1:00 am

  When I read this piece it reminded me of “Rodriguez”. They are both about language. These two individuals in a way feel out of place in the enviroment they are in because of the language barriers. They both try to in some way fit in to what is expected.

• 21    Anna // Nov 15, 2007 at 7:34 am

  LeGuin’s piece, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” , i think ties in best with Milgram’s piece “The Perfils of Obedience.” In both essays, there is a chosen person being tortured, there is also people who “have” to do the torturing and a that keep the followers in line to continue the torturing. In LeGuin’s piece the little child was locked away was subject to torment. However, in Milgram’s piece, the “student” is being tortured by the “teacher”. Both groups, the “teachers” and the citizens of omalas, were committing these acts of torture at someone elses instruction.

• 22    Justin! // Nov 15, 2007 at 8:18 am

  LeGuin’s piece can be easily compared to a number of the other pieces we’ve read this semester, but in particular I like doing so with Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” due to the fact that the people of Omelas seem willing to follow without question whoever decided to lock up the child or keep it locked up. The action/inaction of these people parallels nicely with the subjects described in Milgram’s essay. At least a few of the people in Milgram’s piece felt as though they were contributing to the greater good by following through with the experiment, even if it meant hurting others, just like the people in Omelas.

• 23    Adam Stanford // Nov 15, 2007 at 9:27 am

  Le Guin’s piece can easily be compared to a lot of the stuff that we have read this semester. The piece that I think that this is most comparable is “The Perils of Obedience”. I feel that these pieces are very comparable because they both have to do with obedience. They both deal with the topic of obedience in different way’s, in Le Guin’s piece people break the mold and leave, and in Milgram’s piece no one breaks the mold.