Omelas Moral Standards

If I had the option to stay or leave Omelas, I would choose to stay and make plans for the future of the city to keep everyone happy instead of on the path to nowhere. Although it is unquestionably hard to even think about the way LeGuin describes the awful truth of a 10-year-old child suffering from the lack of food and love being kept in a dark, dirty basement room. The only food he gets is a half-bowl of corn meal per day and lying around on its own excrement for the rest of the day. It’s impossible for me to imagine this little child wretched in this awful situation, but what could I do as a citizen to help this child to get out from that ruined place?

The immorality of the war sometimes makes the wrong seems right, while the right seems wrong. War is a place of destruction and death, but when one has lived in peace, and then being forced into a wartime environment, his moral and the nature of the war would make every decision more difficult to confirm. The vietnamese man who O’brien killed might could have been a communist, who was carrying out a mission in secret, at night. He could have caused harm to the American boys, and O’brien’s unintentional decision might be what saved them, which was something right to do. However, O’brien’s moral sense make him feel guilty for killing someone that didn’t hurt him first, even though he is in a war, where killing should have been something typical.

When it comes to ethics, there is often a connection between morals and social behavior. Depending on the person, these aspects of ethics can really affect the side that somebody will take in a situation. There are different circumstances for everything, and different situations can change the way that certain people will react to them. In real life, an example of this would be whether or not somebody feels compelled to help a homeless person and the reasoning behind the decision.

As previously stated, the narrator is the one who describes and foreshadows the scapegoat use of the child. The narrator described a lack of guilt in Omelas which leads to the idea of scapegoatism. Once the narrator reveals the child and the harsh conditions in which it lives, the narrator also reveals uses of the child. In fact, the narrator makes the reader aware of the scapegoat by stating, “They all know it has to be there,” (252). After the narrator explains how the people of Omelas know the child has to remain in its tortured cellar, he/she explains that their city and its beauty depends on it (252). The depiction of needing the child for the ultimate happiness of the utopia basically describes using him/her as the person to blame. Basically, the child is giving the people of Omelas someone to blame for all the minor flaws, so that they can continue their happy life. Lastly, the narrator explains the theme of ignorance being bliss when he/she describes, “Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there,” (252). Since the narrator tells the reader that not everyone goes to see the child, he/she is telling the audience that some choose to not see it. If they don’t see the child suffering then they can pretend it is not, and they can

In this room is a deprived child locked in a closet. This child can be shown off to those who desire to see it; however, no one is allowed to speak to the child and no one stays long. There are even some people who, after seeing the child, leave Omelas. All of the city's happiness are dependent on the misery of this child. Many people have been taught compassion and the reality of justice because of this child and they base their lives off of

Is morality relative? While some might believe there are absolute or unchangeable ethical truths, in Margaret Atwood’s novel, Oryx and Crake, moral standards are dependent on the social, historical, and economical context of the society. Through genetic modifications, deceitful capitalistic pursuits, and an inflated ego in humans, Atwood creates a society that depends on science and capitalism for moral guidance. Essentially, through the character of Crake, Atwood illustrates the dangers that extremist ideology can have on a society that lacks a prevailing ethical code.

It presents the case of a hypothetical scenario in which an entire city’s population experiences an extremely pure form of bliss, so long as one child lives in a constant state of deprivation and wretched misery. After some time, some people realize the story of the child and their reactions and nature of actions they take sets the main plot and theme of the story. Those who chose to remain behind in the city of Omelas depict a group of people who value and realize what it means to appreciate the sacrifice made by others in making them

As the people of Omelas continued to accept the truth of their city, some have begun to see the child as more of an it than a person and regarded the child similar to a wild animal. “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” (245). Not only do the residents accept the child’s misery, they have also

In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, Ursula K. Le Guin describes the life of a seemingly utopian town with a hidden secret. Throughout the story, Le Guin shows the multifaceted sides of the town of Omelas and describes how on the surface, in its splendor and glory, it is a happy town that has no signs of fear, guilt, or unhappiness. However, all of this town’s glory is only achieved by the fact that there is a little child that is suffering beneath the town, hidden to the public eye. This child is said to be locked in a broom closet of some sort, where people treat it like an animal, and make their children view the harassment of this one child, in order for the people to get out their feelings of sadness, anger, and guilt, which they

“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” goes on to tell a story about a happy place with happy people within it, all through a sacrifice of one child’s life. This child is placed into a basement to live its life with minimal food and water, and no clothes. It receives visits from people, some who come in and kick the child to stand up, and others who come to look and stare at it with fright and disgust in their eyes, but they cannot say anything to it. The child knows no time, but has not always lived “in the tool room.” The child use to scream and cry at night, and sometimes say "I will be good," and "Please let me out. I will be good!" (TOWWAFO). No one would answer. All for their own happiness, and the happiness of the town, they let one individual suffer this badly because it may have been “born defective.”

This correlates with how the Omelas are not morally advancing as a society because most of the them are too selfish and unwilling to do something that would not necessary take the child off of its misery because their lives depend on it, but would act a movement to lessen the amount of misery the child is it for it might cost them their pretend happiness. The society has enjoyed its happiness for far too long to let it go for an innocent, little

The Omelas’ behavior is considered moral through utilitarianism. In the textbook, utilitarianism is defined as “the sum of individual pleasures and pains. It is not my pleasures or pains that matter-but the cumulative happiness of a number of people” (MacKinnon 93). Under this, it is just for the Omelas to make one child suffer to maintain the happiness of the society. Utilitarianism is better explained and supported by the trolley problem, a hypothetical case where you have the power to allow a trolley to kill five workers or one worker by pulling a switch. According to utilitarianism, “you would not only be permitted, but required to pull the switch, which would result in one death and five lives saved” (MacKinnon 100). By losing one life

The child that is kept locked in the basement symbolizes the savagery used in “The ones who walked away from Omelas”. This innocent child is reduced and dehumanized to keep the society functioning. Everyone’s happiness comes from the misery of this abandoned child, because these are the rules of Omelas they must continue treating the child horrible. But this is a very selfish and savagery act because the whole city fears not being happy and having privileges they never stand up for this child. Instead they refer to the child as it taking away that he or she is a person. They feel better about their self because they are feeding the child but half a bowl of corn meal and grease is just as cruel as not eating. Not only do they kick the child they let

the people walk away because some people don't want to be part to the horrible offense of whipping boy the one wretched child. They take a decision that it isn't worth it. All the people of the omelas have made weirdest bargain. They want timeless peace, that is why people choose to sacrifice one of the children, whom they keep in a wretched state, locked up and abuped. This way, they are able to live perfect ives, always knowing that the child suffers for

Although the narrator explains that clearly the kids in Omelas have joy, he/she contradicts him/herself as he/she said, “We (Omelas’ people) do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic.” It is hard to believe that all smiles have become archaic in a “Fairy tale city,” but we can come to believe such statement can be true as we discovered that Omelas’ people do not feel guilty at all; but they feel compassion instead. Most of the residents in Omelas feel compassion for the kid, who is living in the room, but they know they can do anything about it; therefore, they have become kind and amiable with the people they can be with. As a fact, Omelas’ people try to make up for the guilt they feel, for the kid who is living in the room, by having compassion with Omelas’ residents, and so this action brings them a feeling of “happiness.” Nevertheless, the ones who cannot make up for this guilt and know that what they are feeling is not happiness, those people rather to leave Omelas and go to a nonexistent place where they might be able to discover real happiness and will not feel guilty about the