Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Through the course of this paper the author will try to demonstrate, depicting both sides of the argument, the reasons in which a follower of John Stuart Mill 's "Utilitarianism" would disagree with the events taking place in Ursula Le Guin 's "The One 's Who Walk Away from Omelas."

The short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, written by Ursula Le Guin, is about a so-called perfect society where the sacrifice of a child is what provides harmony, equality, and prosperity to the citizens of this city. As a reader, one is invited to create and visualize their own utopia, so that one is emerged with the reality of a moral dilemma: the happiness of many for the unhappiness of one. The symbol represented in the story reflects current and past society issues such as military sacrifice, slavery, and injustice.

The people who leave Omelas who don’t want to deal with the child’s suffering, they simply cannot justify why it happens, these people can’t live happily knowing that their happiness comes from the cost of another’s humanity. The ones who walk away from Omelas have rejected the terms of this perfect society and walk away.

Due to the desire for a lasting idealistic society, no one entity will ruin the lives of all in order to satisfy one’s wellbeing. Therefore the child goes on being treated as a low-rate animal, lower than livestock. This cowardly behavior is highly despicable, based on the manner perfection is attained. People of Omelas should be able to throw away the false utopia and ultimately save one blameless soul. Innocent children do not deserve illogical suffering in order to preserve a distorted society. The moral responsibility to society is to allow each person to control his/her own life and retain the guaranteed freedom. This child is forced to be the sacrifice for the society without any prior consent. It is cruel fate that the child is forced to suffer for Omelas. The people who leave relieve themselves of the responsibility, while abandoning the child. Their action of leaving brings no changes to Omelas, thus it remains

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

America and Omelas alike feel the need suppress guilt. Even though the story says there is no guilt in Omelas, the peoples reaction to the child shows otherwise. Le Guin says that when people go to see the child they are "shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, 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” (Le Guin 210). This shows the need to suppress guilt because the citizens are so disgusted, yet put the child in the back of their heads to carry on with their own pleasure. Some of the people display their guilt by leaving Omelas because they cannot accept the conditions the child lives in for them to be happy. This is seen in contemporary American culture. On any give major city sidewalk, there are homeless people begging for change. Thousands of other Americans walk by them everyday. They do not give them their change or even a glance because if they do they are giving in to their guilt. Guilt is seen as something that needs to be stuffed deep down in America. If

Le Guin cannot or will not elaborate on any of the details about Omelas ' happiness but, she has no issue describing its horrors in detail from the mops "with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads" (Le Guin 866) to the "eh-haa, eh-haa" (Le Guin 866) noise that the captive child hidden beneath the city makes at night. She does not allow any wiggle room for the reader, who was responsible for creating Omelas, to imagine anything that might mitigate or rationalize the child 's misery. The author points out that one thing that the people of Omelas do not have is guilt, but behind this seemingly flawless city’s outward appearance, the community knowingly and willingly inflicts horrible suffering on an innocent child out of their own selfishness to ensure that they can live free of any pain or misery. Perhaps the people of Omelas are without a conscience.

In "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," Ursula K. LeGuin makes use of colorful descriptions and hypothetical situations to draw us into a surrealistic world that illustrates how unsympathetic society can be. LeGuin's ambiguity of how the story will go is purposeful; she cunningly makes her case that each of us handles the undesirable aspects of the world we live in differently, and that ultimately, happiness is relative.

The townspeople together celebrated the upcoming, important day that awaited them. They were all happy and lived in peace; it seemed as if the people belonged to a utopia. However, everything has its flaws. Suddenly, the dark secrets and vulgar tradition followed by people were revealed. The audience reads, hysterical, because of the hamartia that unexpectedly came forth in a story that appeared to be perfect.

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

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

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, is a short story from “The Wind’s Twelve Quarters: Short Stories” written by Ursula Le Guin. In this article, she writes about a magical place called Omelas in this world there is no crime, no hate, no evil. Omelas is anything the reader can imagine, it’s a world of dreams. However, there are two sides to this story. In order for this world to exist, there is a child that will forever live in a basement.

The citizens come to the consensus that nothing can be done for the child, and nothing should be done. To help this one miserable child would lead to the suffering of an entire city, after all. This is what the narrator persuades us to think. She uses many methods to prove her point. For instance, she tells us that if the child were to be saved, “in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.” (1552). She defends the people of Omelas, who are not heartless, cruel, mindless “simple utopians,” but instead as passionate, intelligent, gentle people capable of sympathy. However, they understand that “the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars…the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.” (1552). Not only this, but she asserts that the child is too “imbecile” to recognize love anymore; it has grown too used to the darkness of the cellar to ever revert back to normal civilized life. At every turn, she finds a way to argue against compassion and in favor of causing pain; she portrays the assessment the Omelasians make of the child to be so logical and responsible that even the reader starts to buy into it. Why help the child? There is no point, is there? Continuing this abusive treatment of it is for the good of the order, isn’t it? The narrator makes it extremely easy to

While this child begs to be freed on a daily basis, these heartless human beings ignore the plea of a child in need of affection. The author cites, “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”(6). However, some have the courage to accept that fact that it is immoral to treat a child in such way. They leave the city of Omelas considering the fact that they will leave their life behind and acknowledging the sacrifice of this child being highly

The short story ‘The ones who walk away from Omelas’, written by Ursula K. Le Guin is about an extraordinary city whose people live their lives with content. However, the prosperity of this city is paid for by the suffering of a child in a basement. I was disgusted by the dark secret the city of Omelas held. A child that is neglected and isolated in a small broom-closet is there because it's suffering is the reason why all the people of Omelas are so happy. Everyone in Omelas knows about this child, they learn about when they 8-12.