The Ones Who Walk Away From 1861-1865

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.

Even though the narrator is not from the city, or directly in the story, the narrator is still the protagonist. Furthermore, the reader does not learn much about the narrator, which at times makes the story more interesting. The reader can tell that the narrator understands that there is a darkness in Omelas. The reader hears an example of the narrator’s knowledge of darker things when he/she describes, “I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical,” (251). The narrator describes how he/she didn’t believe there to be drug use; however, there was. Furthermore, prior to foreshadowing some of the dark happenings in Omelas, the narrator describes “One thing I know there was none of in Omelas is guilt,” (251). When the narrator describes how the people of Omelas don’t hold guilt it foreshadows the scapegoat use of the child (foreshadowing theme). Moreover, if it wasn’t for the non-participant viewpoint of the narration, the reader would not be told the events in a foreshadowed

From a close look at the current situation in the world - globalization is drawing more and more countries, and on the other hand, more and more are getting further from each other in terms of life level. In the story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" Ursula LeGuin reminds her readers that walking away from a problem is not a solution of it. Omelas’ well-being in some supernatural way is associated with the life of one child, who is caring a lonely existence in a dark basement. However, citizens of this city did not dare to change lives or try to come to the child with a gentle word. Otherwise, the happiness for the whole city would be over. At the same time, all the people of the city knew this child. The author raises many humanitarian questions that will influence the civilization’s future survival: will people do something about a problem or keep walking away and enjoy their happiness for someone’s suffering?

Damon Knight’s “The Country of the Kind” follows a narrator who the audience at first knows little about, who lives in a society that is different from the norm, but is also initially left ambiguous. This sense of the unknown exists up until the narrator stumbles upon a pamphlet which opens up new viewpoints to the reader. The pamphlet serves to create three new perspectives in particular, all of which significantly shift the reader’s understanding of the story. First, it gives the reader a chance to understand the narrator and sympathize with him. Second, it offers a new perspective on society and their overall conception of what defines a utopia. The third and final perspective is that of the people who live within this society, and their interactions with the main characters. These three new perspectives prove to be formative in understanding the main character, his interactions with other characters in the story, and the role of society.

In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, the informally-speaking narrator depicts a cookie-cutter utopia with perpetually happy citizens that sing and dance in the music-filled streets during the Festival of Summer. However, under one of the beautiful public buildings lays a child, no older than ten years-old, who lays in its own excrement. Although the citizens know the emancipated child is there, they refuse to act upon the child’s suffering, for their happiness depends entirely on the child’s abominable misery. Through ethos, the narrator illustrates this utopian society with a casual tone and frequently asks the audience for their input. Le Guin’s fairy-tale introduction of the story establishes her credibility through her extensive knowledge and understanding of the people of Omelas. Le Guin utilizes logos through the narrator’s second person point of view which incites the audience to draw their own conclusions about the city of Omelas and question their own justifications of the child’s existence. The concept of the happiness of many relying on the necessary suffering of one forces the reader to question their own morals and their justifications for the child’s physical and mental condition. Through ethos, logos, and pathos, Le Guin presents the contrast and divide between the citizens of Omelas and the child in the cellar in order to challenge the reader’s capacity for moral self-conception.

In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, a short story by Ursula Le Guin, the scene is set in a beautiful near Utopia called Omelas. The youths and girls have prepared their horses and are about to begin the opening ceremony for the Festival of Summer. This festival is to show the true beauty and majesty of the great city. All is well and the citizens of Omelas are excited to celebrate such a joyous occasion. On the surface everything seems fine but beneath the surface there lies a child locked away in a cellar. The citizens know there is nothing they can do to save the child but the knowledge of it allows them to live on and have happiness in their lives.

Ursula K. LeGuin’s experimental short story “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas” presents the reader with the moral dilemma of a seemingly splendid city of hedonistic pleasures, whose citizen’s unending happiness is possible only through the exploitation of a single tormented child. In asking the reader to fill in the details the narrator is unable to describe of Omelas, LeGuin puts the burden of Omelas’ creation directly on the reader; and in doing so, the burden of guilt rests on the reader’s shoulders. By presenting Omelas as a shining beacon of civilization, free from “monarchy… slavery… the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb” (LeGuin 278), LeGuin seemingly represents Omelas as an anarchist utopia. However,

The heart and soul of the story, the very foundation that reflects and defines the main character’s experience or their thoughts and actions, the intended moral of the story as well as the conclusion or point of view of the author – these are all expressed through the theme. It is the element of fiction that glues and binds all the other elements of a story together. The goal of this paper is to show how the theme of suffering affected the characters of two different works of fiction. In the story of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, the city of Omelas was described as a utopian setting with joyful citizens living in abundance, although some had an internal suffering because of the existence of a particular being.

This scene sets the stage for a glorious escape into ones own imagination as she leads the reader down the twisted, path of utopian discovery. The imagery of Omelas is striking in its beauty and easily captures the imagination as Le Guin effortlessly entangles the reader in the construction of her utopia and shows that Omelas has something tantalizing in it for everyone. Each street in the city has a specific genre of music that caters to ones specific taste. Children run “naked in the bright air” (1) through green fields of soft grass, and even the horses are ridden without a saddle or a bit to avoid causing them any sort of discomfort. There are no kings to rule over them, no slaves to serve them, no wars or rumors of wars to frighten them, the laws of the land are few and simple, and every person has their place in society.

After having read Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” I have come to question my understanding of what is morally correct, whether the needs of the collective should come over those of the individual, and what constitutes a good, justice society. A story about a child’s unnecessary, involuntary, perpetual plight of losing his liberty for the greater good of the group, it touches upon utopic life, utilitarianism, scapegoating, complacency, and responsibility. Is it justifiable to have someone—a child, no less—live in endless misery so that an entire city can live in happiness? Can an almost perfect society in which all but one are happy be a utopia?

“William James’s Lost Souls in Ursula Le Guin’s Utopia”, is an academic journal article written by the author, Linda Simon. The article was published as a feature scholarly journal by the John Hopkins University Press’s and was written for philosophy and literature. The article contributes to the study of literature because it showcases an example of comparative literature. In this instance, Simon analyzes Ursula Le Guin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” to the argumentative essay which inspired Le Guin's short story, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life” written by William James. By comparing the two texts, author Linda Simon analyzes the differences in moral and ethical codes in hopes to provide justification and reasoning for the decisions that the citizens of Omelas make to either stay or leave despite knowing their society is built upon a dark foundation.

In the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” there is an underlying instrument for gaining opulence. The instrument in this story is a strain on one’s moral code and buried deep in tradition. Mrs.Le Guinn, the author of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, utilizes this short story to portray how utilitarianism is justified, accepted, and deemed tolerable within society, even to the point of sacrificing the innocent to create an inescapable relative happiness.

I found this story to be extremely eerie. I actually was a little creeped out. Omelas is an Utopian city where all the inhabitants are happy, cultured and pleasant with the exception to the one child locked in the dark cellar. This child I believe, represents all that is ugly in their world so in order to hid the ugliness of the city, and in order to keep it pure and clean they lock the dirty little secrets up so, outside the city is perfect and no one sees the imperfection that exists because it is locked away. I wonder if morals could be represented in the people that walked away. Those that believed Omelas was perfect had lost their morals, yet those that walked away saw the cruel reality if a child locked in the cellar and by doing that

However, before looking into Le Guin's vision of a society run by a utilitarian morality, we need to know what is Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is a system that is specifically designed to satisfy the needs and wants of as many people as possible while sustaining minimal suffering. Le Guin shows this concept with Omelas, a city that consists of high happiness of the majority of the population for the price of the pain of a child who is locked away in a cellar in total misery. How this society came to be is an absolute mystery and is left up to the reader to think about. The vagueness of the creation of Omelas shows how the creation of the city does not matter but how it runs now, is what is essential. This allows the reader to do exactly what the author wants: that is to focus and be skeptical about the ethics of Utilitarianism. For example, Le

Leguin writes a story that goes against the norms of science fiction in a supposedly sci fi story titled “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. Her outlook on science fiction describes a story in which society resides in a dystopian utopia. The story takes place in a perfect world where joy is amongst most of its people. One person, well child, is treated poorly in order to maintain their idea of a perfect place. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, according to to our society may not serve as the best example of a science fiction literary work. Leguin writes a story about socialism, but does not include what most sci fi stories have which are a world of technology.