I agree with you about the meaning of the exhortations to the reader, up to the point in the last paragraph where some people walk away. The behavior of those who walk away doesn’t fit neatly into the “critique of utilitarianism/capitalism” reading, since they aren’t helping, but it doesn’t fit neatly into my “commentary on inability to imagine utopia” reading- and they are the ones the story is named after, so they’re probably important.
I guess the glibest reading is that they are walking to a city that is nice without a suffering child, and that’s why we can’t see or imagine the place they are walking to. However, that doesn’t explain the emphasized detail that they walk alone, and it feels too riddle-like for le Guin.
I agree that the ending doesn’t fit either. I’ve mentioned something similar here. I’m genuinely confused what the ending is about, and have mainly settled on ‘the story would be really bleak and unenjoyable without it’.
I agree with you about the meaning of the exhortations to the reader, up to the point in the last paragraph where some people walk away. The behavior of those who walk away doesn’t fit neatly into the “critique of utilitarianism/capitalism” reading, since they aren’t helping, but it doesn’t fit neatly into my “commentary on inability to imagine utopia” reading- and they are the ones the story is named after, so they’re probably important.
I guess the glibest reading is that they are walking to a city that is nice without a suffering child, and that’s why we can’t see or imagine the place they are walking to. However, that doesn’t explain the emphasized detail that they walk alone, and it feels too riddle-like for le Guin.
I agree that the ending doesn’t fit either. I’ve mentioned something similar here. I’m genuinely confused what the ending is about, and have mainly settled on ‘the story would be really bleak and unenjoyable without it’.