37 pages • 1 hour read
Ursula K. Le GuinThe Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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This flexible-use quiz is designed for reading comprehension assessment and activity needs in classroom, home-schooling and other settings. Questions connect to the text’s plot, characters, and themes — and align with the content and chapter organization in the rest of this study guide. Use quizzes as pre-reading hooks, reading checks, discussion starters, entrance/exit “tickets,” small group activities, writing activities, and lessons on finding evidence and support in a text.
Depth of Knowledge Levels: Questions require respondents to demonstrate ability to:
- Recall and Understand Content (e.g., who, what, where, when)
- Apply and Analyze Ideas (e.g., how and why)
Questions
1. What sound announces the beginning of Omelas’s festivities? (short answer)
3. Which of the following is part of Omelas’s festivities?
A) a horserace
B) a pageant
C) a marching band
D) fireworks
4. Which of the following best describes the role music plays in the story?
A) It serves as an ironic counterpoint to the story’s events.
B) It captures the innocent happiness of a prior era.
C) It symbolizes emotion that eludes or exceeds description.
D) It reflects Omelas’s predominantly oral artistic tradition.
5. What literary device does the narrator use to communicate the difficulty of describing Omelas?
A) simile
B) aporia
C) catharsis
6. What fictional, non-addictive drug is readily available in Omelas? (short answer)
7. The narrator characterizes Omelas’s happiness as which of the following?
A) informed
B) naive
C) precarious
D) unearned
8. The narrator refers to a child who is kept “[i]n a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes” as “it.” What effect does this have? (Paragraph 9)? (short answer)
9. What objects particularly frighten the child?
A) pots
B) shoes
C) scissors
D) mops
10. What purpose does the neglected and imprisoned child serve?
A) The child does penance for its ancestor’s crimes.
B) The child ensures the well-being of the rest of Omelas.
C) The child illustrates the brutality of life outside Omelas.
D) The child gives Omelas’s people an outlet for their cruelty.
11. What motif ties the child’s suffering to Omelas’s happiness?
A) nakedness
B) music
C) animals
D) darkness
12. When do people in Omelas typically learn of the child’s existence? (short answer)
13. In the long run, how does knowledge of the child’s existence affect most people in Omelas?
A) It has no long-term consequences on them.
B) It causes them to leave Omelas.
C) It forces them to live in a state of denial.
D) It makes them value their existence more.
14.The narrator’s suggestion that the child’s existence makes Omelas more “credible” implies which of the following?
A) Societies should prioritize the needs of the many.
B) Societal progress always requires sacrifice.
C) Humans struggle to imagine pure happiness.
D) Humans are innately brutal and selfish.
15. The story implies that the people who leave Omelas value which of the following more than happiness?
A) beauty
B) peace
C) truth
D) justice
16. Where do the people who leave Omelas go?
A) a neighboring city
B) into the forest
C) somewhere unknown
D) across the ocean
Answers
1. bells
2. D
3. A
4. C
5. B
6. Drooz
7. A
8. It emphasizes the child’s dehumanization.
9. D
10. B
11. A
12. between the ages of eight and twelve
13. D
14. C
15. D
16. C
Related Titles
By Ursula K. Le Guin
