Short Stories

for Reading 8

ESO L 260

ramirez Name:

________________

Short Stories for Reading 8 Contents:

Vocabulary for Discussing Fiction ................................................................................................ 1Pre-reading: Chopin ....................................................................................................................... 7The Story of an Hour ..................................................................................................................... 8Study Guide: “The Story of an Hour” .......................................................................................... 11Pre-reading: Carver ..................................................................................................................... 15A Serious Talk .............................................................................................................................. 16Study Guide: “A Serious Talk” .................................................................................................... 20There Will Come Soft Rains ........................................................................................................ 24Pre-Reading: Bradbury ................................................................................................................ 25August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains ................................................................................. 28Study Guide: “August 2026” ........................................................................................................ 34Pre-reading: Thurber ................................................................................................................... 36The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble .................................................................................. 37Quick Review: “The Rabbits …” .................................................................................................. 38Pre-reading: Jackson ................................................................................................................... 39Paranoia ....................................................................................................................................... 40Quick Review: “Paranoia” ............................................................................................................ 47Pre-reading: LeGuin .................................................................................................................... 48The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas .................................................................................. 49Study Guide: “The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas” ........................................................... 53

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Vocabulary for Discussing Fiction Know these words and phrases. We will use them when discussing the novel. 1. Setting “Setting” is the time and the place of the story. When and where does it happen?

Setting has three levels:

* the most general, or the macro setting

*the medium level, or the meso setting – in between the smallest and largest levels

* the smallest and most specific level, or the micro setting

Try IT: Label the settings using the examples given in class

Micro Setting

Room 220 Meso

Setting

PCC Sylvania, Portland Macro Setting

Spring term

Pacific NW, USA The Present

10 am

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2. Character and Characterization “Characters” are ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ A work of fiction can be a main character or minor character. The main good character is also called the hero or the protagonist;

the main “bad” character is also called the antagonist.

Think: ✱Can an animal be a character?

✱How can the reader distinguish between a main character and a minor character?

Characterization is the way the author shows the character’s personality.

3. Plot & Narrative Arc Plot is “what happens” in a story. ✱One easy way to explain a story is by summarizing “what happens” in the story. This is a natural thing for humans to do.

✱A different, more abstract way to explain a story is by creating a timeline that puts the events in order.

✱A third way to analyze a story is by asking “What basic problems do the characters have? How do these problems make the story happen?” This is the narrative arc method.

Conflict: Development: Climax or Turning Point: Resolution:

Notice that these first three concepts answer the key questions “Where? When? Who? What? Why?”

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4. Mood, Tone The feeling or emotion that the writer attempts to create in the reader. Do you know these tone words?

melancholy ✱ child-like ✱ anxious ✱ scandalized ✱ nostalgic ✱ droll ✱ sarcastic / ironic 5. Theme

The major concept the writer wants to explore with their work. The theme is usually a universal, abstract idea.

Examples: “love,” “family loyalty,” “human behavior in wartime.”

Try It: Write one or more reasonable themes below each artistic work below.

Movie: Titanic ✱ Play: “Romeo and Juliet” ✱ Fairy Tale: “Cinderella”

6. Symbol

A symbol (noun) is a noun that represents a bigger idea. Here are some pictures that are common symbols; what does each one represent?

Ð ✔ 🐌 N 🍾 👎 ÿ M T 🍼 ¯ 🕶

Be careful about the word “symbol:” there is a difference between symbolism (noun) and symbolize (verb). The adjective is symbolic.

Writers use symbolism in many ways. Whenever a writer describes a noun, consider if the noun could represent a bigger idea.

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7. Figurative language

Figurative language is an expressive, emotional way to add description to writing. The writer compares two things creatively. There are two general kinds of figurative language:

Ô A simile is figurative language that uses “like” or “as.” Ô A metaphor is figurative language that does NOT use “like” or “as.”

Ô There’s a special kind of metaphor called personification: that’s where the metaphor describes something non-human by comparing it to a human.

Examples, from most ordinary to the most literary:

1. Last night, I slept like a log. (S)

2. This dress is perfect because it fits like a glove. (S)

3. He’s as dumb as a box of rocks. (S)

4. "It’s been a hard day’s night, and I've been working like a dog." (The Beatles) (M - S)

5. They fought like cats and dogs. (S)

6. “Baby, you’re a firework.” (Katy Perry) (M)

7. “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.” (Elvis Presley) (M)

8. Your explanation is as clear as mud. (S)

9. "Built Like A Rock" (Chevrolet ad) (S)

10. You're as cold as ice. (S)

11. The glue that holds American together is the words of leaders like Dr. King. (M)

12. I'm drowning in work. (M)

13. Necessity is the mother of invention. (M, P)

14. Time flies like an arrow. (S)

15. The old hardwood floor groaned under his heavy steps. (M, P)

16. The lonely train whistle called out in the night. (M, P)

17. The snow wrapped a white blanket around each tree. (M, P)

18. In the garden, eggplants grow curving like ox horns. (S)

19. The noise split the air. (M)

20. On the bed lay three dark pillows like huge loaves of bread. (S)

21. Her dark eyes were not bad-looking, like a pair of tadpoles. (S)

22. From the kitchen came the coughing of bellows. (M, P)

23. “Therefore the moon, pale in her anger, washes all the air.” (Shakespeare) (M, P)

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Try It:

1. I am as tall as a redwood in the forest .

2. I am funny like a ___________________.

3. I am as fast as a ___________________.

4. I am as happy as a ___________________.

5. I am as clever as a __________________.

6. The snow is a fluffy blanket.

7. Her heart is a ___________________________________.

8. My teacher is a ___________________________________.

9. The world is a ___________________________________.

10. My best friend is a _______________________________.

11. The wind screamed .

12. The ocean waves _________________________.

13. The sunlight _________________________.

14. Mt. Hood _________________________.

15. The snake ________________________.

8. Foreshadowing A hint about something that will happen later in the story. 9. Irony This is related to sarcasm. When you use sarcasm, you use a word with the opposite meaning of your REAL emotions. If you’re late to class, your teacher might say “Thanks for being so early!” If you stumble, someone might say “Nice dance!” If you have no money, you might tell your partner, “You’re so lucky you married a rich person.” Similarly, when a writer uses irony, they create a situation that is the opposite of a character’s emotions.

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Summary of Reading Vocabulary: Your Notes

1. Setting

What are the two parts you MUST consider when discussing “setting”?

2. Character, characterization

What types of characters are there?

3. Plot

Plot can be analyzed with a narrative arc. What are the four parts of a narrative

arc?

Plot can also be analyzed with a timeline. How is that different from a narrative arc?

4. Mood

5. Theme

6. Symbol, symbolize

7. Figurative language

How is a metaphor different from a simile?

What is special about the metaphor called personification?

8. Foreshadowing

9. Irony

✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱

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Pre-reading: Chopin Before you begin “Story of an Hour” think about these questions.

Ö When have you been aware of a difference between what you

were EXPECTED to feel and what you REALLY felt?

Ö What is marriage for women? For men?

Ö Is it different? Has it changed over time? Who was Kate Chopin? (Why is her lifetime important?)

Ö A well-loved and very popular feminist writer Ö Lived 1850–1904; mother of six children Ö Wrote two published novels and about a hundred short stories in the 1890s.

Vocabulary Preview:

What’s an antonym of the given word?

To abandon: _______________

Brief: _______________

Exhausted: ________________

Grief: ______________

To persist: ________________

To relax: _______________

What’s a synonym for the given word?

Enable: ________________

Impose: ________________

Impulse: ________________

To suspend: ________________

Subtle: ________________

Trivial: ________________

Noun Verb Adjective Adverb affliction afflicted afflicted X

approach approach approachable approachably

assurance assure assured assuredly

indication indicate indicative indicatively

revelation reveal revealed X

significance signify significant significantly

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The Story of an Hour By Kate Chopin, 1894

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great

care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed (showed) in half concealing (hiding). Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence (the news) of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall (hurried

to get there before) any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the

sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same,

with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. (She froze

and could not take in the news.) She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion

that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of

trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler (salesman)

was crying his wares (shouting out what he had for sale). The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and

countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through

the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in

its dreams.

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She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke

repression (showed that she hid her feelings) and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder (far away) on one of those patches of blue sky.

It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom (chest) rose and fell tumultuously (wildly). She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess

her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing (moving) blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her

body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy

that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread

her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she

would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination (light: here,

means sudden understanding). And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not. What

did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion (she suddenly feels the

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desire to be independent) which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the

keyhole, imploring for admission (begging to be let in). "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door – you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life (life-giving medicine) through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot (imagination was running wild)

along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that

life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length (after a little bit) and opened the door to her sister's importunities (begging). There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly (unconsciously) like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly (calmly) carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of (hide him from) his wife. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of the joy that kills. v

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Study Guide: “The Story of an Hour” After You Read: Comprehension

1) Timeline: What Happened?

Complete the timeline with the events of the story in the order they happened.

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2) Narrative Arc: What Happened? Complete the Narrative Arc. Indicate at least one major conflict; “Story of an Hour”

certainly has more than one. Write a few major events (three or four) in the “Development” section. Be careful with “Climax” and “Resolution.”

In this story, the Climax is what Mrs. Mallard experiences – the change in her emotions. Some stories may not have a clear Resolution, but “Story of an Hour” has a VERY clear ending!

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3) More Detail: What’s the setting? Time: (Why do you say this?) Place: (Can you really be specific?)

4) More detail: What’s Mrs. Mallard’s personality? Write some adjectives that fit.

On the surface, she seems …

Hidden inside, she is …

Summarize this passage from the story. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.”

Paraphrase these sentences from the story. Use normal, simple language. A. “When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone.”

B. “A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.”

C. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw … the face that had never looked save with love upon her…”

D. “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.”

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Think: A. Is the story realistic? In the past, or today?

B. Does Mrs. Mallard hate her husband?

C. Is Mr. Mallard a bad husband?

D. What does Mrs. Mallard want from life that she does not get?

E. In your opinion, is the story’s ending more happy or more sad?

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Pre-reading: Carver Raymond Carver is an important modern writer of both short stories and novels. He’s from the Pacific Northwest. His simple, direct style of writing deeply influenced American literature. His problems – alcoholism, divorce – are important parts of his fiction. Before you begin “A Serious Talk,” think about these two questions.

There is an idea in psychology called “denial” – when a person cannot face the truth, they pretend that it is NOT true. Can you remember a time you experienced denial? How do men and women experience divorce? What reasons do they seek divorce? Are they the same reasons or different? Has it changed over time? Is divorce different here than in your country?

Vocabulary Verbs:

Nouns: Adjectives:

Pose

Restrain

Wreck

Reverse

Well (up)

Saw

Cashmere

Gift certificate

Ashtray

Wax

Halo

Philodendron

Discus

Vodka

Thanksgiving

Restraining order

Grieving

Consoling

Leathery

Scorched

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A Serious Talk

By Raymond Carver, 1980 From the award-winning collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Vera's car was there, no others, and Burt gave thanks for that. He pulled into

the drive and stopped beside the pie he'd dropped the night before. It was still there, the aluminum pan upside down, a halo of pumpkin filling on the pavement. It was the day after Christmas.

He'd come on Christmas day to visit his wife and children. Vera had warned him beforehand. She'd told him the score. She'd said he had to be out by six o'clock because her friend and his children were coming for dinner.

They had sat in the living room and solemnly opened the presents Burt had brought over. They had opened his packages while other packages wrapped in festive paper lay piled under the tree waiting for after six o'clock.

He had watched the children open their gifts, waited while Vera undid the ribbon on hers. He saw her slip off the paper, lift the lid, take out the cashmere sweater.

“It's nice,” she said. “Thank you, Burt.” “Try it on,” his daughter said. “Put it on,” his son said. Burt looked at his son, grateful for his backing him up. She did try it on. Vera went into the bedroom and came out with it on. “It's nice,” she said. “It's nice on you,” Burt said, and felt a welling in his chest. He opened his gifts. From Vera, a gift certificate at Sondheim's men's store.

From his daughter, a matching comb and brush. From his son, a ballpoint pen. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱

Vera served sodas, and they did a little talking. But mostly they looked at the tree. Then his daughter got up and began setting the dining-room table,' and his son went off to his room.

But Burt liked it where he was. He liked it in front of the fireplace, a glass in his hand, his house, his home.

Then Vera went into the kitchen. From time to time his daughter walked into the dining room with something

for the table. Burt watched her. He watched her fold the linen napkins into the wine glasses. He watched her put a slender vase in the middle of the table. He watched her lower a flower into the vase, doing it ever so carefully.

A small wax and sawdust log burned on the grate. A carton of five more sat ready on the hearth. He got up from the sofa and put them all in the fireplace. He watched until they flamed. Then he finished his soda and made for the patio door. On the way, he saw the pies lined up on the sideboard. He stacked them in his arms, all six, one for every ten times she had ever betrayed him.

In the driveway in the dark, he'd let one fall as he fumbled with the door. ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱

The front door was permanently locked since the night his key had broken off inside it. He went around to the back. There was a wreath on the patio door. He rapped on the glass. Vera was in her bathrobe. She looked out at him and frowned. She opened the door a little.

Burt said, “I want to apologize to you for last night. I want to apologize to the kids, too.”

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Vera said, “They're not here.” She stood in the doorway and he stood on the patio next to the philodendron

plant. He pulled at some lint on his sleeve. She said, “I can't take any more. You tried to burn the house down.” “I did not.” “You did. Everybody here was a witness.” He said, “Can I come in and talk about it?” She drew the robe together at her throat and moved back inside. She said, “I

have to go somewhere in an hour.” He looked around. The tree blinked on and off. There was a pile of colored

tissue paper and shiny boxes at one end of the sofa. A turkey carcass sat on a platter in the center of the dining-room table, the

leathery remains in a bed of parsley as if in a horrible nest. A cone of ash filled the fireplace. There were some empty Shasta cola cans in there too. A trail of smoke stains rose up to the bricks to the mantel, where the wood that stopped them was scorched black.

He turned around and went back to the kitchen. He said, “What time did your friend leave last night?” She said, “If you're going to start that, you can go right now.” He pulled a chair out and sat down at the kitchen table in front of the big

ashtray. He closed his eyes and opened them. He moved the curtain aside and looked out at the backyard. He saw a bicycle without a front wheel standing upside down. He saw weeds growing along the redwood fence.

She ran water into a saucepan. “Do you remember Thanksgiving?” she said. “I said then that was the last holiday you were going to wreck for us. Eating bacon and eggs instead of turkey at ten o'clock at night.”

“I know it,” he said. “I said I'm sorry.” “Sorry isn't good enough.” The pilot light was out again. She was at the stove trying to get the gas going

under the pan of water. “Don't burn yourself,” he said. “Don't catch yourself on fire.” He considered her robe catching fire, him jumping up from the table, throwing

her down onto the floor and rolling her over and over into the living room, where he would cover her with his body. Or should he run to the bedroom for a blanket?

“Vera?” She looked at him. “Do you have anything to drink? I could use a drink this morning.” “There's some vodka in the freezer.” “When did you start keeping vodka in the freezer?” “Don't ask.” “Okay,” he said, “I won't ask.” He got out the vodka and poured some into a cup he found on the counter. She said, “Are you just going to drink it like that, out of a cup?” She said,

“Jesus, Burt. What'd you want to talk about, anyway? I told you I have someplace to go. I have a flute lesson at one o'clock.”

“Are you still taking flute?” “I just said so. What is it? Tell me what's on your mind, and then I have to get

ready.” “I wanted to say I was sorry.” She said, “You said that.” He said, “If you have any juice, I'll mix it with this vodka.” She opened the

refrigerator and moved things around. “There's cranapple juice,” she said.

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“That's fine,” he said. “I'm going to the bathroom,” she said. He drank the cup of cranapple juice and vodka. He lit a cigarette and tossed

the match into the big ashtray that always sat on the kitchen table. He studied the butts in it. Some of them were Vera's brand, and some of them weren't. Some even were lavender-colored. He got up and dumped it all under the sink.

The ashtray was not really an ashtray. It was a big dish of stoneware they'd bought from a bearded potter on the mall in Santa Clara. He rinsed it out and dried it. He put it back on the table. And then he ground out his cigarette in it.

✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱

The water on the stove began to bubble just as the phone began to ring. He heard her open the bathroom door and call to him through the living room.

“Answer that! I'm about to get into the shower.” The kitchen phone was on the counter in a corner behind the roasting pan. He

moved the roasting pan and picked up the receiver. “Is Charlie there?” the voice said. “No,” Burt said. “Okay,” the voice said. While he was seeing to the coffee, the phone rang again. “Charlie?” “Not here,” Burt said. This time he left the receiver off the hook. Vera came back into the kitchen wearing jeans and a sweater and brushing

her hair. He spooned the instant into the cups of hot water ad then spilled some vodka

into his. He carried the cups over to the table. She picked up the receiver, listened. She said, “What's this? Who was on the phone?”

“Nobody,” he said. “Who smokes colored cigarettes?” “I do.” “I didn't know you did that.” “Well, I do.” She sat across from him and drank her coffee. They smoked and used the

ashtray. There were things he wanted to say, grieving things, consoling things,

things like that. “I'm smoking three packs a day,” Vera said. “I mean, if you really want to

know what goes on around here.” “God almighty,” Burt said. Vera nodded. “I didn't come over here to hear that,” he said. “What did you come over here to hear, then? You want to hear the house

burned down?” “Vera,” he said. “It's Christmas. That's why I came.” “It's the day after Christmas,” she said. “Christmas has come and gone,” she

said. “I don't ever want to see another one.” “What about me?” he said. “You think I look forward to holidays?”

The phone rang again. Burt picked it up. “It's someone wanting Charlie,” he said. “What?” “Charlie,” Burt said. Vera took the phone. She kept her back to him as she talked.

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Then she turned to him and said, “I'll take this call in the bedroom. So would you please hang up after I've picked it up in there? I can tell, so hang it up when I say.”

He took the receiver. She left the kitchen. He held the receiver to his ear and listened. He heard nothing. Then he heard a man clear his throat. Then he heard Vera pick up the other phone. She shouted, “Okay, Burt! I have it now, Burt!”

He put down the receiver and stood looking at it. He opened the silverware drawer and pushed things around inside. He opened another drawer. He looked in the sink. He went into the dining room and got the carving knife. He held it under hot water until the grease broke and ran off. He wiped the blade on his sleeve. He moved to the phone, doubled the cord, and sawed through without any trouble at all. He examined the ends of the cord. Then he shoved the phone back into its corner behind the roasting pan.

✱ ✱ ✱ ✱ ✱

She came in. She said, “The phone went dead. Did you do anything to the telephone?” She looked at the phone and then picked it up from the counter.

“Son of a bitch!” she screamed. She screamed, “Out, out, where you belong!” She was shaking the phone at him. “That's it! I'm going to get a restraining order, that's what I'm going to get!”

The phone made a ding when she banged it down on the counter. “I'm going next door to call the police if you don't get out of here now!” He picked up the ashtray. He held it by its edge. He posed with it like a man

preparing to hurl a discus.

“Please,” she said. “That's our ashtray.”

He left through the patio door. He was not certain, but he thought he had proved something. He hoped he had made something clear. The thing was, they had to have a serious talk soon. There were things that needed talking about, important things that had to be discussed. They'd talk again. Maybe after the holidays were over and things got back to normal. He'd tell her the goddamn ashtray was a goddamn dish, for example.

He stepped around the pie in the driveway and got back into his car. He started the car and put it into reverse. It was hard managing until he put the ashtray down. t

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Study Guide: “A Serious Talk” Summary: Timeline

Summary: Narrative Arc

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1: Thinking About the Story: Inference Why do you think Burt and Vera separated? 2: Comprehension

1. On what two days does the story take place?

2. On the first day, why does Vera say that Burt needs to leave the house by six o'clock?

3. How is Burt's gift to Vera different from Vera's gift to Burt?

4. What happened to Burt's house key?

5. On the second day, why does Burt want to apologize to Vera and the children?

6. Why does Burt ask what time Vera's friend left? How does Vera answer?

7. What other holiday does Vera accuse Burt of spoiling? What happened then?

8. Why is Burt so interested in the cigarette butts in the ashtray?

9. Who do you think is calling on the telephone? Why does the caller ask to speak to "Charlie"?

10. Why does Burt leave the receiver off the hook?

11. Why does Vera not want Burt to hear her telephone conversation?

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12. What is Burt looking for in the kitchen? What does he do with it?

13. What does Burt take from the house at the end? Why does he take it?

After reading this short story at least two times, answer the following questions, which explore the story more deeply. Write short paragraphs.

1. Why might holiday time be so emotionally difficult for Burt?

2. Discuss Burt's desire to have a “serious talk” with Vera. What do you think he wants to say to her? What does he consider “serious”?

3. How would you describe Burt's personality? In your answer, consider how he reacts to situations that upset him. Give examples.

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4. Starting on the bottom of Page 2, Burt imagines rescuing Vera from a fire. What does this fantasy show us about Burt?

Symbolism Reread this sentence from the story. What symbolism do you understand here?

“He saw a bicycle without a front wheel standing upside down. He saw weeds growing along the redwood fence.”

How is the ceramic dish symbolic in these sentences?

“He'd tell her the goddamn ashtray was a goddamn dish, for example.” “ ... It was hard managing until he put the ashtray down.”

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Poem

There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale 1920 There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.

What does the poem mean? Do you agree with the poem’s prediction?

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Pre-Reading: Bradbury Here are some verbs you will read in the short story. Write your understanding and a translation into your language of each word. tick:

hiss:

eject:

click:

glide:

slam:

chime:

scrape:

digest:

flush:

dart:

crawl:

thud:

whirl:

knead:

fade:

whirl:

pelt:

Other Important Words anniversary (Noun): A day that marks or celebrates a past event that occurred on the same date of the year as the initial event. For example, a wedding anniversary marks a year after a wedding day. radioactive (Adjective): Giving off nuclear radiation; for example, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the Fukushima nuclear power plant leaked radioactive waste. silhouette (Noun): The dark shape or outline of something shown against a light background.

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Words from Context

Read each sentence. Guess the meaning of the underlined words. In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast.

hissing: interior: browned:

Outside, the garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car.

reveal: The dirty dishes were dropped into a hot washer and emerged twinkling dry

emerged: twinkling:

The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes.

rubble: The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts.

founts: The water pelted windowpanes.

pelt: The water ran down the charred west side where the house had been burned evenly free of its white paint.

charred: Scanning Scan the reading for names. Write the names you find here:

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Before You Read The 1940’s and 1950’s – after WWII – were a period of incredible technological change. Many everyday objects for us – cars, phones, computers – were available to common people for the first time ever, and that changed American culture. Everyday people were more comfortable than ever before. But all this technological advancement had a dark side. These technologies were also used for war. The US and the Soviet Union were enemies; both sides raced to create more powerful weapons, rockets, satellites, computers, bombs. People in both countries lived in non-stop fear of the other side. Now, brainstorm a few facts you know about the U.S. – or your home country - at that time. Who Was Ray Bradbury? Science Fiction Because of the fast technological development, humans suddenly were thinking about the possibility of entering outer space and travelling to the moon, to other planets, even to the stars. This changed the imagination of everyday people. A new kind of writing developed: science fiction. This was fiction that told stories that were only possible with technology that was different from the world of that time. Many stories were about space travel. Other common topics were robots and atomic bombs. Format Stories like “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” appeared in magazines like Fantastic Stories.

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Italicize titles of longer works New York Times Better Homes and Gardens Collected Poems from Amhurst The Martian Chronicles Titanic

Use quotation marks for titles of shorter works “Trump Lawyer Raided” “Top Five Holiday Destinations” “There Will Come Soft Rains” “The Green Morning” “Single Ladies”

Look It Up! What was the Cold War? Use simple.wikipedia.org or sources from class to lean something about it. Why is the house empty? Why are some words in italics? What is special about the stove?

August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains Part 1 of 3 Ray Bradbury (1950)

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine!

In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunnyside up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk.

"Today is August 4, 2026," said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling, "in the city of Allendale, California." It repeated the date three times for

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What kind of technology are “relays” and “memory tapes” – modern or not? Why did the garage door open? What are the “mice”? What has happened to the city? There are five places described. Underline the description of each one.

memory's sake. "Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills."

Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memory tapes glided under electric eye.

Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o'clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, eight-one! But no doors slammed, no carpets took the soft tread of rubber heels. It was raining outside. The weather box on the front door sang quietly: "Rain, rain, go away; rubbers, raincoats for today..." And the rain tapped on the empty house, echoing.

Outside, the garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car. After a long wait the door swung down again.

At eight-thirty the eggs were shriveled and the toast was like stone. An aluminum wedge scraped them into the sink, where hot water whirled them down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea. The dirty dishes were dropped into a hot washer and emerged twinkling dry.

Nine-fifteen, sang the clock, time to clean.

Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted. The rooms were acrawl with the small cleaning animals, all rubber and metal. They thudded against chairs, whirling their mustached runners, kneading the rug nap, sucking gently at hidden dust. Then, like mysterious invaders, they popped into their burrows. Their pink electric eyes faded. The house was clean.

Ten o'clock. The sun came out from behind the rain. The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.

Ten-fifteen. The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness. The water pelted windowpanes, running down the charred west side where the house had been burned evenly free of its white paint. The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.

The five spots of paint—the man, the woman, the children, the ball—remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.

The gentle sprinkler rain filled the garden with falling light.

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Part 2 of 3

Write your own questions Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace. How carefully it

had inquired, "Who goes there? What's the password?" and, getting no answer from lonely foxes and whining cats, it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia.

It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up. The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!

The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.

Twelve noon.

A dog whined, shivering, on the front porch. The front door recognized the dog voice and opened. The dog, once huge

and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud. Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience.

For not a leaf fragment blew under the door but what the wall panels flipped open and the copper scrap rats flashed swiftly out. The offending dust, hair, or paper, seized in miniature steel jaws, was raced back to the burrows. There, down tubes which fed into the cellar, it was dropped into the sighing vent of an incinerator which sat like evil Baal in a dark corner.

The dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door, at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here.

It sniffed the air and scratched the kitchen door. Behind the door, the stove was making pancakes which filled the house with a rich baked odor and the scent of maple syrup.

The dog frothed at the mouth, lying at the door, sniffing, its eyes turned to fire. It ran wildly in circles, biting at its tail, spun in a frenzy, and died. It lay in the parlor for an hour.

Two o'clock, sang a voice. Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as

softly as blown gray leaves in an electrical wind. Two-fifteen.

The dog was gone. In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks

leaped up the chimney. Two thirty-five.

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Bridge tables sprouted from patio walls. Playing cards fluttered onto pads in a shower of pips. Martinis manifested on an oaken bench with egg-salad sandwiches. Music played. But the tables were silent and the cards untouched. At four o'clock the tables folded like great butterflies back through the paneled walls.

Four-thirty.

The nursery walls glowed. Animals took shape: yellow giraffes, blue lions, pink antelopes, lilac

panthers cavorting in crystal substance. The walls were glass. They looked out upon color and fantasy. Hidden films docked through well-oiled sprockets, and the walls lived. The nursery floor was woven to resemble a crisp, cereal meadow. Over this ran aluminum roaches and iron crickets, and in the hot still air butterflies of delicate red tissue wavered among the sharp aroma of animal spoors! There was the sound like a great matted yellow hive of bees within a dark bellows, the lazy bumble of a purring lion. And there was the patter of okapi feet and the murmur of a fresh jungle rain, like other hoofs, falling upon the summer-starched grass. Now the walls dissolved into distances of parched weed, mile on mile, and warm endless sky. The animals drew away into thorn brakes and water holes.

It was the children's hour. Five o'clock. The bath filled with clear hot water.

Six, seven, eight o'clock. The dinner dishes manipulated like magic tricks, and in the study a click. In the metal stand opposite the hearth where a fire now blazed up warmly, a cigar popped out, half an inch of soft gray ash on it, smoking, waiting. Nine o'clock. The beds warmed their hidden circuits, for nights were cool here. Nine-five. A voice spoke from the study ceiling:

"Mrs. McClellan, which poem would you like this evening?" The house was silent.

The voice said at last, "Since you express no preference, I shall select a poem at random." Quiet music rose to back the voice. "Sara Teasdale. As I recall, your favorite....

"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly;

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And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone." The fire burned on the stone hearth and the cigar fell away into a mound

of quiet ash on its tray. The empty chairs faced each other between the silent walls, and the music played.

Why does Bradbury use the word “die”? How does he make the house seem human? What’s the first way the house tries to put out the fire? What’s the second way the house tries to put out the fire? What does the fire do that is “clever”?

Part 3 of 3

At ten o'clock the house began to die. The wind blew. A failing tree bough crashed through the kitchen window.

Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!

"Fire!" screamed a voice. The house lights flashed, water pumps shot

water from the ceilings. But the solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating, under the kitchen door, while the voices took it up in chorus: "Fire, fire, fire!"

The house tried to save itself. Doors sprang tightly shut, but the windows

were broken by the heat and the wind blew and sucked upon the fire. The house gave ground as the fire in ten billion angry sparks moved with

flaming ease from room to room and then up the stairs. While scurrying water rats squeaked from the walls, pistoled their water, and ran for more. And the wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain.

But too late. Somewhere, sighing, a pump shrugged to a stop. The

quenching rain ceased. The reserve water supply which had filled baths and washed dishes for many quiet days was gone.

The fire crackled up the stairs. It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the

upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.

Now the fire lay in beds, stood in windows, changed the colors of drapes! And then, reinforcements. From attic trapdoors, blind robot faces peered down with faucet mouths

gushing green chemical. The fire backed off, as even an elephant must at the sight of a dead

snake. Now there were twenty snakes whipping over the floor, killing the fire with a clear cold venom of green froth.

But the fire was clever. It had sent flames outside the house, up through

the attic to the pumps there. An explosion! The attic brain which directed the pumps was shattered into bronze shrapnel on the beams.

The fire rushed back into every closet and felt the clothes hung there.

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“oblivious” means “not aware, not conscious.” What is happening to the computers that run the house?

The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from

the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air. Help, help! Fire! Run, run! Heat snapped mirrors like the brittle winter ice. And the voices wailed Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children dying in a forest, alone, alone. And the voices fading as the wires popped their sheathings like hot chestnuts. One, two, three, four, five voices died.

In the nursery the jungle burned. Blue lions roared, purple giraffes

bounded off. The panthers ran in circles, changing color, and ten million animals, running before the fire, vanished off toward a distant steaming river ...

Ten more voices died. In the last instant under the fire avalanche, other

choruses, oblivious, could be heard announcing the time, playing music, cutting the lawn by remote-control mower, or setting an umbrella frantically out and in the slamming and opening front door, a thousand things happening, like a clock shop when each clock strikes the hour insanely before or after the other, a scene of maniac confusion, yet unity; singing, screaming, a few last cleaning mice darting bravely out to carry the horrid ashes away! And one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read poetry aloud in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked.

The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puffing out skirts of

spark and smoke. In the kitchen, an instant before the rain of fire and timber, the stove

could be seen making breakfasts at a psychopathic rate, ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast, twenty dozen bacon strips, which, eaten by fire, started the stove working again, hysterically hissing!

The crash. The attic smashing into kitchen and parlor. The parlor into cellar, cellar into sub-cellar. Deep freeze, armchair, film tapes, circuits, beds, and all like skeletons thrown in a cluttered mound deep under.

Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke. Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone.

Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steam:

"Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is..." v

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Study Guide: “August 2026” Write complete sentences to answer each question.

1. List three things the house can do to care for the people who live there.

2. What has probably happened to the city?

1. Why was the west face of the house black? How did the silhouettes get there?

2. Main Character: _________________________________ Adjective that describes the character:__________________________ “Prove it!” – Write a quote from the story that supports the adjective

Adjective that describes the character’s personality:_________________________

“Prove it!” – Write a quote from the story that supports the adjective

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On your own paper, complete answers to the following questions.

3. Conflict: What type of conflict does the story have (person/person, person/group, person/society)? Tell me which character(s) have the conflict.

4. Plot: Complete a narrative arc for this story. Include the major events of the story in the “Development” section. I’m looking for about 5 or 6.

5. Connection: How does this story connect to the poem? How are their themes similar – and what is the big difference between them?

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Pre-reading: Thurber Three traditional story forms are the parable, the myth, and the fable. These forms are ancient – and you probably know many examples already.

Parable: A story meant to teach a deep, difficult lesson. Usually religious. Examples:

Myth: A story meant to explain the world. Topics often include “How the world was created” and “How humans began.”

Examples:

Fable: A story meant to teach a lesson about how to act to children. They often have animals as main characters, and they usually end with a moral – a very clear lesson in the form of a proverb.

Examples: This modern fable was written in 1940 by a famous American humorist. (Think: What was happening in the world at that time?) The language is slangy and informal. Here are a few phrases or words to look out for:

A. Crazy about

B. Bolt of lightening

C. Civilize

D. At a great distance

E. Escapists

F. Shamed (v)

G. Desert island

H. Descended on

I. An internal matter

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The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble By James Thurber

Within the memory of the youngest child there was a family of rabbits who lived near a pack of wolves. The wolves announced that they did not like the way the rabbits were living. (The wolves were crazy about the way they themselves were living, because it was the only way to live.) One night several wolves were killed in an earthquake and this was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that rabbits pound on the ground with their hind legs and cause earthquakes. On another night one of the wolves was killed by a bolt of lightning and this was also blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that lettuce-eaters cause lightning. The wolves threatened to civilize the rabbits if they didn't behave, and the rabbits decided to run away to a desert island. But the other animals, who lived at a great distance, shamed them, saying, "You must stay where you are and be brave. This is no world for escapists. If the wolves attack you, we will come to your aid in all probability." So the rabbits continued to live near the wolves and one day there was a terrible flood which drowned a great many wolves. This was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that carrot-nibblers with long ears cause floods. The wolves descended on the rabbits, for their own good, and imprisoned them in a dark cave, for their own protection. When nothing was heard about the rabbits for some weeks, the other animals demanded to know what had happened to them. The wolves replied that the rabbits had been eaten and since they had been eaten the affair was a purely internal matter. But the other animals warned that they might possibly unite against the wolves unless some reason was given for the destruction of the rabbits. So the wolves gave them one. "They were trying to escape," said the wolves, "and, as you know, this is no world for escapists." Moral: Run, don't walk, to the nearest desert island.

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Quick Review: “The Rabbits …” 1. Make a list of the things which the wolves blame on the rabbits and of the reasons the

wolves give. How could you describe these reasons?

2. Consider the way the other animals behave. How do you explain their behavior?

3. Could the rabbits have been saved? Could the wolves have been stopped?

4. This fable was first published in 1940. What do you think Thurber was thinking of when he wrote it? Who do you think the wolves, the rabbits and the other animals represent?

5. What other political situations can you think of that are (or were) similar to the fable?

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Pre-reading: Jackson Vocabulary: Non-academic

1. Grin

2. Falsetto

3. Slink

4. Abashed

5. Souvenir

6. Equivocal

7. Grudge

8. Melt

9. Chum

10. Boisterous

11. Glance

12. Sardonic

13. Obscene

14. Fussed

15. Limp

16. Glory

Vocabulary:Academic

Noun Verb Adjective Adverb occurrence occur X X

debate debate debatable debatably

awareness X aware, unaware X

display display displayed X

intensity intensify intense intensely

subordinate subordinate subordinate subordinately

persistence persist persistent persistently

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Paranoia By Shirley Jackson

A previously unpublished story from the 1940s – 1950s

Mr. Halloran Beresford, pleasantly tired after a good day in the office, still almost clean-shaven after eight hours, his pants still neatly pressed, pleased with himself particularly for remembering, stepped out of the candy shop with a great box under his arm and started briskly for the corner. There were twenty small-size gray suits like Mr. Beresford’s on every New York block, fifty men still clean-shaven and pressed after a day in an air-cooled office, a hundred small men, perhaps, pleased with themselves for remembering their wives’ birthdays. Mr. Beresford was going to take his wife out to dinner, he decided, going to see if he could get last-minute tickets to a show, taking his wife candy. It had been an exceptionally good day, altogether, and Mr. Beresford walked along swiftly, humming musically to himself.

He stopped on the corner, wondered whether he would save more time by taking a bus or by trying to catch a taxi in the crowd. It was a long trip downtown and Mr. Beresford ordinarily enjoyed the quiet half hour on top of a Fifth Avenue bus, perhaps reading his paper. He disliked the subway intensely, and found the public display and violent exercise necessary to catch a taxi usually more than he was equal to. However, tonight he had spent a lot of time waiting in line in the candy store to get his wife’s favorite chocolates, and if he were going to get home before dinner was on the table he really had to hurry a little. Mr. Beresford went a few steps into the street, waved at a taxi, said “Taxi!” in a voice that went helplessly into a falsetto, and slunk back, abashed, to the sidewalk while the taxi went by uncomprehending. A man in a light hat stopped next to Mr. Beresford on the sidewalk and for a minute, in the middle of the crowd, he stared at Mr. Beresford and Mr. Beresford stared at him as people sometimes do without caring particularly what they see. What Mr. Beresford saw was a thin face under the light hat, a small mustache, a coat collar turned up. Funny-looking guy, Mr. Beresford thought, lightly touching his clean-shaven lip. Perhaps the man thought Mr. Beresford’s almost unconscious gesture was offensive; at any rate he frowned and looked Mr. Beresford up and down before he turned away. Ugly customer, Mr. Beresford thought.

The Fifth Avenue bus Mr. Beresford usually took came slipping up to the corner and Mr. Beresford, pleased not to worry about a taxi, started for the stop. He had reached out his hand to take the rail inside the bus door when he was roughly elbowed aside and the ugly customer in the light hat shoved on ahead of him. Mr. Beresford muttered and started to follow, but the bus door closed on the packed crowd inside and the last thing Mr. Beresford saw as the bus went off down the street was the man in the light hat grinning at him from inside the door.

“There’s a dirty trick,” Mr. Beresford told himself, and settled his shoulders irritably in his coat. Still under the influence of his annoyance, he ran a few steps out into the street and waved again at a taxi, not trusting his voice, and was almost run down by a delivery truck. As Mr. Beresford skidded back to the sidewalk the truck driver leaned out and yelled something unrecognizable at Mr. Beresford and when Mr. Beresford saw the people around him on the

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corner laughing he decided to start walking downtown; in two blocks he would reach another bus stop, a good corner for taxis, and a subway station; much as Mr. Beresford disliked the subway, he might still have to take it, to get home in any sort of time. Walking downtown, his candy box under his arm, his gray suit almost unaffected by the crush on the corner, Mr. Beresford decided to swallow his annoyance and remember it was his wife’s birthday; he began to hum again as he walked.

He watched the people as he walked along, his perspective sharpened by being a man who has just succeeded in forgetting an annoyance; surely the girl in the very high-heeled shoes, coming toward him with a frown on her face, was not so able to put herself above petty trifles, or maybe she was frowning because of the shoes; the old lady and man looking at the shop windows were quarrelling. The funny-looking guy in the light hat coming quickly through the crowd looked as though he hated someone . . . the funny-looking guy in the light hat; Mr. Beresford turned clean around in the walking line of people and watched the man in the light hat turn abruptly and start walking downtown, about ten feet in back of Mr. Beresford. What do you know about that, Mr. Beresford marvelled to himself, and began to walk a little quickly. Probably got off the bus for some reason, wrong bus maybe. Then why would he start walking uptown instead of catching another bus where he was? Mr. Beresford shrugged and passed two girls walking together and talking both at once.

Halfway from the corner he wanted, Mr. Beresford realized with a sort of sick shock that the man in the light hat was at his elbow, walking steadily along next to him. Mr. Beresford turned his head the other way and slowed his step. The other man slowed down as well, without looking at Mr. Beresford.

Nonsense, Mr. Beresford thought, without troubling to work it out any further than that. He settled his candy box firmly under his arm and cut abruptly across the uptown line of people and into a shop, a souvenir and notion shop, he realized as he came through the door. There were two or three people inside—a woman and a little girl, a sailor—and Mr. Beresford retired to the far end of the counter and began to fuss with an elaborate cigarette box on which was written “Souvenir of New York City,” with a trylon and a perisphere painted beneath.

“Isn’t this cute?” the mother said to the little girl, and they both began to laugh enormously over the match holder made in the form of a toilet; the matches were to go in the bowl, and on the cover, Mr. Beresford could see, was a trylon and a perisphere, with “Souvenir of New York City” written above.

The man in the light hat came into the shop and Mr. Beresford turned his back and busied himself picking up one thing after another from the counter; with half his mind he was trying to find something that did not say “Souvenir of New York City” and with the other half of his mind he was wondering about the man in the light hat. The question of what the man in the light hat wanted was immediately subordinate to the question of whom he wanted; if his light-hatted designs were against Mr. Beresford they must be nefarious, else why had he not announced them before now? The thought of accosting the man and demanding his purpose crossed Mr. Beresford’s mind fleetingly, and was succeeded, as always in an equivocal situation, by Mr. Beresford’s vivid recollection of his own small size and innate cautiousness.

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Best, Mr. Beresford decided, to avoid this man. Thinking this, Mr. Beresford walked steadily toward the doorway of the shop, intending to pass the man in the light hat and go out and catch his bus home.

He had not quite reached the man in the light hat when the shop’s clerk came around the end of the counter and met Mr. Beresford with a genial smile and a vehement “See anything you like, Mister?”

“Not tonight, thanks,” Mr. Beresford said, moving left to avoid the clerk, but the clerk moved likewise and said, “Got some nice things you didn’t look at.”

“No, thanks,” Mr. Beresford said, trying to make his tenor voice firm.

“Take a look at it,” the clerk insisted. This was unusually persistent even for such a clerk; Mr. Beresford looked up and saw the man in the light hat on his right, bearing down on him. Over the shoulders of the two men he could see that the shop was empty. The street looked very far away, the people passing in either direction looked smaller and smaller; Mr. Beresford realized that he was being forced to step backward as the two men advanced on him.

“Easy does it,” the man in the light hat said to the clerk. They continued to move forward slowly.

“See here now,” Mr. Beresford said, with the ineffectuality of the ordinary man caught in such a crisis; he still clutched his box of candy under his arm. “See here,” he said, feeling the solid weight of the wall behind him.

“Ready,” the man in the light hat said. The two men tensed and Mr. Beresford, with a wild yell, broke between them and ran for the door. He heard a sound more like a snarl than anything else behind him and the feet coming after him. I’m safe on the street, Mr. Beresford thought as he came through the door into the line of people, as long as there are lots of people they can’t do anything to me. He looked back, walking downtown between a fat woman with many packages and a girl and a boy leaning on one another’s shoulders, and he saw the clerk standing in the door of the shop looking after him; the man with the light hat was not in sight. Mr. Beresford shifted the box of candy so that his right arm was free and thought, Perfectly silly. It’s still broad daylight. How they ever hoped to get away with it . . .

The man in the light hat was on the corner ahead, waiting. Mr. Beresford hesitated in his walk and then thought, It’s preposterous, all these people watching. He walked boldly down the street; the man in the light hat was not even watching him, but was leaning calmly against a building lighting a cigarette. Mr. Beresford reached the corner, darted quickly into the street, and yelled boisterously, “Taxi!” in a great voice he had never suspected he possessed until now. A taxi stopped as though not daring to disregard that great shout, and Mr. Beresford moved gratefully toward it. His hand was on the door handle when another hand closed over his and Mr. Beresford was aware of the light hat brushing his cheek.

“Come on if you’re coming,” the taxi driver said; the door was open and Mr. Beresford, resisting the push that urged him into the taxi, slipped his hand out from under the other hand and ran back to the sidewalk. A crosstown bus had stopped on the corner and Mr.

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Beresford, no longer thinking, hurried into it, dropped a nickel into the coin register, and went to the back of the bus and sat down. The man in the light hat sat a little ahead, between Mr. Beresford and the door. Mr. Beresford put his box of candy on his lap and tried to think. Obviously the man in the light hat was not carrying a grudge all this time about Mr. Beresford’s almost unconscious gesture toward the mustache, unless he were peculiarly sensitive. In any case, there was the clerk in the souvenir shop; Mr. Beresford realized suddenly that the clerk in the souvenir shop was a very odd circumstance indeed. He set the clerk aside to think about later and went back to the man in the light hat. If it was not the insult to the mustache, what was it? And then another thought caught Mr. Beresford breathless: how long, then, had the man in the light hat been following him? He thought back along the day: he had left his office with a group of people, all talking cheerfully, all reminding Mr. Beresford that it was his wife’s birthday; they had escorted Mr. Beresford to the candy shop and left him there. He had been in his office all day except for lunch with three fellows in the office; Mr. Beresford’s mind leaped suddenly from the lunch to his first sight of the man in the light hat at the bus stop; it seemed that the man in the light hat had been trying to push him on the bus into the crowd, instead of pushing in ahead. In that case, once he was on the bus . . .  Mr. Beresford looked around. In the bus he was riding on now there were only five people left. One was the driver, one Mr. Beresford, one the man in the light hat, sitting slightly ahead of Mr. Beresford. The two others were an old lady with a shopping bag and a man who looked as though he might be a foreigner. Foreigner, Mr. Beresford thought, while he looked at the man, foreigner, foreign plot, spies. Better not rely on any foreigner, Mr. Beresford thought.

The bus was going swiftly along between high dark buildings. Mr. Beresford, looking out of the window, decided that they were in a factory district, remembered that they had been going east, and decided to wait until they got to one of the lighted, busy sections before he tried to get off. Peering off into the growing darkness, Mr. Beresford noticed an odd thing. There had been someone standing on the corner beside a sign saying “Bus Stop” and the bus had not stopped, even though the dim figure waved its arms. Surprised, Mr. Beresford glanced up at the street sign, noticed that it said “E. 31 St.” at the same moment that he reached for the cord to signal the driver he wanted to get off. As he stood up and went down to the aisle, the foreign-looking man rose also and went to the door beside the driver. “Getting off,” the foreign man said, and the bus slowed. Mr. Beresford pressed forward and somehow the old lady’s shopping bag got in his way and spilled, sending small items—a set of blocks, a package of paper clips—spilling in all directions.

“Sorry,” Mr. Beresford said desperately as the bus doors opened. He began to move forward again and the old lady caught his arm and said, “Don’t bother if you’re in a hurry. I can get them, dear.” Mr. Beresford tried to shake her off and she said, “If this is your stop don’t worry. It’s perfectly all right.”

A coil of pink ribbon was caught around Mr. Beresford’s shoe; the old lady said, “It was clumsy of me, leaving my bag right in the aisle.”

As Mr. Beresford broke away from her the doors closed and the bus started. Resigned, Mr. Beresford got down on one knee in the swaying bus and began to pick up paper clips, blocks, a

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box of letter paper that had opened and spilled sheets and envelopes all over the floor. “I’m so sorry,” the old lady said sweetly. “It was all my fault, too.”

Once, over his shoulder, Mr. Beresford saw the man in the light hat sitting comfortably. He was smoking and his head was thrown back and his eyes were shut. Mr. Beresford gathered together the old lady’s shopping as well as he could, and then made his way forward to stand by the driver. “Getting off,” Mr. Beresford said.

“Can’t stop in the middle of the block,” the driver said, not turning his head.

“The next stop, then,” Mr. Beresford said.

The bus moved rapidly on. Mr. Beresford, bending down to see the streets out the front window, saw a sign saying “Bus Stop.”

“Here,” he said.

“What?” the driver said, going past.

“Listen,” Mr. Beresford said. “I want to get off.”

“It’s O.K. with me,” the driver said. “Next stop.”

“You just passed one,” Mr. Beresford said.

“No one waiting there,” the driver said. “Anyway, you didn’t tell me in time.” Mr. Beresford waited. After a minute he saw another bus stop and said, “O.K.”

The bus did not stop, but went past the sign without slowing down.

“Report me,” the driver said.

“Listen, now,” Mr. Beresford said, and the driver turned one eye up at him; he seemed to be amused.

“Report me,” the driver said. “My number’s right here on this card.”

“If you don’t stop at the next stop,” Mr. Beresford said, “I shall smash the glass in the door and shout for help.”

“What with?” the driver said. “The box of candy?”

“How do you know it’s—” Mr. Beresford said before he realized that if he got into a conversation he would miss the next bus stop. It had not occurred to him that he could get off anywhere except at a bus stop; he saw lights ahead and at the same time the bus slowed down and Mr. Beresford, looking quickly back, saw the man in the light hat stretch and get up.

The bus pulled to a stop in front of a bus sign; there was a group of stores.

“O.K.,” the bus driver said to Mr. Beresford, “you were so anxious to get off.” The man in the light hat got off at the rear door. Mr. Beresford, standing by the open front door, hesitated and said, “I guess I’ll stay on for a while.”

“Last stop,” the bus driver said. “Everybody off.” He looked sardonically up at Mr. Beresford. “Report me if you want to,” he said. “My number’s right on that card there.”

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Mr. Beresford got off and went directly up to the man in the light hat, standing on the sidewalk. “This is perfectly ridiculous,” he said emphatically. “I don’t understand any of it and I want you to know that the first policeman I see—”

He stopped when he realized that the man in the light hat was looking not at him but, bored and fixedly, over his shoulder. Mr. Beresford turned and saw a policeman standing on the corner.

“Just you wait,” he said to the man in the light hat, and started for the policeman. Halfway to the policeman he began to wonder again: what did he have to report? A bus that would not stop when directed to, a clerk in a souvenir shop who cornered customers, a mysterious man in a light hat—and why? Mr. Beresford realized suddenly that there was nothing he could tell the policeman: he looked over his shoulder and saw the man in the light hat watching him, and then Mr. Beresford bolted down a subway entrance. He had a nickel in his hand by the time he reached the bottom of the steps, and he went right through the turnstile; to the left it was downtown and he ran that way.

He was figuring as he ran: he’ll think if I’m very stupid I’d head downtown, if I’m smarter than that I’d go uptown, if I’m really smart I’d go downtown. Does he think I’m middling smart or very smart?

The man in the light hat reached the downtown platform only a few seconds after Mr. Beresford and sauntered down the platform, his hands in his pockets. Mr. Beresford sat down on the bench listlessly. It’s no good, he thought, no good at all, he knows just how smart I am.

The train came blasting into the station, Mr. Beresford ran in the door and saw the light hat disappear into a door of the next car. Just as the doors were closing Mr. Beresford dived, caught the door, and would have been out except for a girl who seized his arm and shouted, “Harry! Where in God’s name are you going?”

The door was held halfway by Mr. Beresford’s body, his arm left inside with the girl, who seemed to be holding it with all her strength. “Isn’t this a fine thing,” she said to the people in the car, “he sure doesn’t want to see his old friends.”

A few people laughed; most of them were watching.

“Hang on to him, sister,” someone said.

The girl laughed and tugged on Mr. Beresford’s arm. “He’s gonna get away,” she said laughingly to the people in the car and a big man stepped to her with a grin and said, “If you gotta have him that bad, we’ll bring him in for you.”

Mr. Beresford felt the holding grasp on his arm turn suddenly to an irresistible force which drew him in through the doors, and they closed behind him. Everyone in the car was laughing at him by now, and the big man said, “That ain’t no way to a treat a lady, chum.”

Mr. Beresford looked around for the girl but she had melted into the crowd somewhere and the train was moving. After a minute the people in the car stopped looking at him and Mr. Beresford smoothed his coat and found that his box of candy was still intact.

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The subway train was going downtown. Mr. Beresford, who was now racking his brains for detective tricks, for mystery-story dodges, thought of one that seemed infallible. He stayed docilely on the train, as it went downtown, and got a seat at Twenty-third Street. At Fourteenth he got off, the light hat following, and went up the stairs and into the street. As he had expected, the large department store ahead of him advertised “Open till 9 tonight” and the doors swung wide, back and forth, with people going constantly in and out. Mr. Beresford went in. The store bewildered him at first—counters stretching away in all directions, the lights much brighter than anywhere else, the voices clamoring. Mr. Beresford moved slowly along beside a counter; it was stockings first, thin and tan and black and gauzy, and then it was handbags, piles on sale, neat solitary ones in the cases, and then it was medical supplies, with huge almost human figures wearing obscene trusses, standing right there on the counter, and people coming embarrassedly to buy. Mr. Beresford turned the corner and came to a counter of odds and ends. Scarves too cheap to be at the scarf counter, postcards, a bin marked “Any item 25¢,” dark glasses. Uncomfortably, Mr. Beresford bought a pair of dark glasses and put them on.

He went out of the store at an entrance far away from the one he had used to go in; he could have chosen any of eight or nine entrances, but this seemed complicated enough. There was no sign of the light hat, no one tried to hinder Mr. Beresford as he stepped up to the taxi stand, and, although debating taking the second or the third car, finally took the one that was offered him and gave his home address.

He reached his apartment building without mishap, stole cautiously out of the taxi and into the lobby. There was no light hat, no odd person watching for Mr. Beresford. In the elevator, alone, with no one to see which floor button he pressed, Mr. Beresford took a long breath and began to wonder if he had dreamed his wild trip home. He rang his apartment bell and waited; then his wife came to the door and Mr. Beresford, suddenly tired out, went into his home.

“You’re terribly late, darling,” his wife said affectionately, and then, “But what’s the matter?”

He looked at her; she was wearing her blue dress and that meant she knew it was her birthday and expected him to take her out; he handed her the box of candy limply and she took it, hardly noticing in her anxiety over him. “What on earth has happened?” she asked. “Darling, come in here and sit down. You look terrible.”

He let her lead him into the living room, into his own chair where it was comfortable, and he lay back.

“Is there something wrong?” she was asking anxiously, fussing over him, loosening his tie, smoothing his hair. “Are you sick? Were you in an accident? What has happened?”

He realized that he seemed more tired than he really was, and was glorying in all this attention. He sighed deeply and said, “Nothing. Nothing wrong. Tell you in a minute.”

“Wait,” she said. “I’ll get you a drink.”

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He put his head back against the soft chair as she went out. Never knew that door had a key, his mind registered dimly as he heard it turn. Then he was on his feet with his head against the door listening to her at the telephone in the hall.

She dialled and waited. Then: “Listen,” she said, “listen, he came here after all. I’ve got him.” v

Quick Review: “Paranoia”

1. Context: Explain a possible connection between the U.S. national mood - politically or socially – and the story. Consider this quote: “Foreigner, Mr. Beresford thought, while he looked at the man, foreigner, foreign plot, spies.” (p 43)

2. Main Character: Name: _____________________________________________

3. Adjective that describes him physically: _________________________________ “Prove it!” – Write a quote from the story that supports the adjective

4. Adjective that describes his personality: _________________________________ “Prove it!” – Write a quote from the story that supports the adjective

5. Conflict: What type of conflict does the story have (person/person, person/self, person/society)?

6. Plot: Complete a narrative arc here. Include the major events of the story in the “Development” section. Question: Is there a Resolution?

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Pre-reading: LeGuin Vocabulary: Answer before you read the story. Write your best guess about the meaning under the underlined word, based on context. 1. I don’t know, but I incline to think that Donald Trump would be a terrible husband.

2. For graduation day, we ask that your clothing stay decorous. Don’t put on your party

dresses until after the ceremony!

3. It’s a very old book, so the words in it are archaic.

4. People believe that Native Americans were barbarians, but it’s not true; their civilizations were highly developed and they did not solve problems with violence.

5. I don’t trust Dolores. She treats us like small children instead of adults. Her voice is so sweet and dulcet it makes me crazy.

6. I need some peppers and vinegar! This dish is too bland – I don’t like boring food.

7. I love science fiction. I enjoy imagining the future: will it be a nightmare or a utopia?

8. When the school bell rings, the children run out of school filled with energy and exuberance.

9. I know you don’t drink or smoke, but don’t act like such a goody-goody when I have a beer. It makes me uncomfortable when you talk so loudly about how digusting alcohol is.

10. I’m single but I don’t date very often. My sex life is very boring … there are no orgies.

11. There are some provisioners selling food at the music festival.

12. I just bought these headphones and they don’t work! They must be defective. I need a refund!

13. I watched a movie about WW II. The Nazis did some truly abominable things to their prisoners.

14. I hate “reality TV” – the people they show are so stupid, so shallow, so vapid!

15. The moment when your child walks away to school alone for the first time is poignant.

16. Looking into the night sky gives me profound thoughts, like “Why are we born?”

17. To be kind, to be humane, to have compassion – these are more important than wealth or fame.

18. My brother-in-law is such a pedant that I hate to talk to him. He corrects every little thing I say and makes me feel stupid.

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The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin from The Wind's Twelve Quarters

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The ringing of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and gray, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows' crossing flights over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. 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. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding throughout the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.

Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?

They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this, one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this, one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. There were not less complex than us.

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. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe 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. I wish I could

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convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however--that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc.--they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn't matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming to Omelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the trains station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers' Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger, who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas --at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the gory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcane and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not habit-forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. 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. I don't think many of them need to take drooz.

Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably sticky; in the benign gray beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thing magic of the tune.

He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.

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As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders stroke the horses' necks and soothe them, whispering. "Quiet, quiet, there my beauty, my hope..." They begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes -- the child has no understanding of time or interval -- sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the eyes disappear. 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. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.

This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and

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beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.

Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no real doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. 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. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.

Now do you believe them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, 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. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. 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. v

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Study Guide: “The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas” Comprehension: Answer after you have read the story once. A short answer or sentence is fine. 1. What is a major event on the day the story takes place?

2. What kind of technology does Omelas have?

3. Does Omelas have a king?

4. On page 49, LeGuin writes, “But I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you.” WHAT is she trying to convince us of?

5. Is Omelas a religious place? What kind of religion(s) do the people of Omelas have?

6. On page 51, LeGuin asks, “Do you believe?” What does she want us to believe in?

7. Who is in the little basement room?

8. * Why is the person there?

9. Do the people of Omelas know about this?

10. On page 52, LeGuin asks again, “Now do you believe them?” Why does she ask again?

11. What types of people walk away from Omelas?

12. What direction do they walk in?

After reading this short story at least two times, answer the following questions, which explore the story more deeply.

1. Who is the narrator of the story? (Be careful here – the “author” is different from the “narrator.”)

2. Are we expected to “believe” in Omelas as if it were a real place? What are the clues? Write a quote – a full sentence – to support your answer.

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3. Why is it required that every citizen of Omelas visit the child at least once?

4. What might the child in the basement closet symbolize? What do YOU believe it symbolizes?

5. Why would a person walk away from happiness? Suggest one or more possible reasons.

Review. Visit Amazon.com. On the webpage for each book it sells, Amazon.com gives its customers an opportunity to give their opinions about the book. Go to the Amazon.com website and search for the title of this story. Look at the reviews, and skim some of the comments. Which of the comments is closest to your opinion? Which of the comments is the most different from your opinion?

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Read the story for the third time; then, think about these quotations.

1. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. (p 49)

2. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. ( p 49)

3. Religion yes, clergy no. (p 50)

4. I don't think many of them need to take drooz.(p 50)

5. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. (p 51)

6. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed. (p 52)

7. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. (p 52)

8. 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. (p 52)

Which meaning seems to fit with each quotation? Be careful – the quotes DON’T MATCH exactly, and these are not all exact paraphrases.

A. ________The people of Omelas have good lives and are psychologically healthy. They don’t want to escape from reality.

B. ________ Only in religion can we be free of human suffering. C. ________The people of Omelas consider that some emotions are not very healthy or

beautiful; they think that when people are psychologically well-developed, they don’t have certain emotions.

D. ________The past has its bad parts that violate human rights. The present also has some bad parts that violate human rights.

E. ________When someone is psychologically limited and damaged, they can never recover. They will never enjoy life.

F. ________ You need some intelligence to truly enjoy your own life. G. ________Writers usually like to write about tragedies. It’s a common to think that sad

stories are more “serious” and “important” than happy stories. H. ________If you decide to leave your own culture and reject its rules of behavior and

society, there is no way to tell if you’ve made the right decision or not; your “new” life might be better or worse.

I. ________Humans have a deep need for spiritual expression and belief, but the structure of a church, temple or mosque is almost always corrupted.

J. ________ The development of society requires some human suffering. It cannot be escaped.