The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Literary Analysis

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.

Savagery, insanity and murder, one would never think that “innocent” children were capable of such appalling things, but maybe we are wrong. In both Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, and The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, both of these authors wrote about children acting as just that and many characters became very similar to each other. Each society had potential in being successful, but both had major flaws that key characters discovered and then used to tear the fragile fabric that the society was built on apart. The biggest flaw in both of the societies was that they were controlled by fear; it drove them to the point of no return in which they would have never reached under normal circumstances. When the source causing people to

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.

Self preservation and personal comfort, another consistent theme throughout the story is continuously perpetuated as generation-after-generation of residents are introduced to the unspeakable treatment of this helpless child. Ironically when first exposed to the atrocity, most children were more disgusted and outraged by the horrible predicament of the child than the adults who by all accounts should have been responsible for its protection. This obvious moral role reversal signifies a purity and innocence that is often present in a child’s perspective that is untarnished by corrupt societal teachings and norms. Additionally, the comparison between the moral integrity of

All of the narrator's questions invite the reader to place ;himself in the position of the people of Omelas. Do you need this to make you happy? Then you may have it. Once the reader begins to enjoy the city and begins to see its happiness as a good thing, then the reader, like the adolescents in the story, must be shown that on which the happiness depends. Readers must face the question of what they would be willing to sacrifice for happiness. In Omelas, the people have no guilt so they are able to sacrifice the child for their happiness with no remorse because they are happy.

, the characters in the story often show emotions whether it be externally or internally. The

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, by; Ursula Le Guin is a short story that shows us how a society guarantees their happiness at the expense of a human being. It describes a happy city, with fairs and happy children. It tells us of a young boy with a gift for playing the flute and everyone is all smiles. “To praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything,” (Le Guin, 1). No one is Omela feels guilty, even if they are responsible for a terrible act.

In the story, while the author is describing joy to the reader she says that “All smiles have become archaic.” (p.1par.2) This shows that the joy has been around longer than anyone can possibly recall, that these people know no other expression than to smile. With the logic that to have joy in Omelas there always has to be a child to suffer, but the point is that this suffering has happened so long that the Omelians just assume that it has to happen. Because of the time that this “tradition” has survived it has become entwined with their culture. The ones who know why this must happen are likely the caregivers of the child and the ones who have to find a new child when one dies/ grows up.

When reading on in Le Guin’s piece, you can see a common thread that ties the townspeople to this tortured child and even a connection to how this relates today. We watch the people of Omelas living beautiful happy lives while there are plenty or resources to share with the child locked away, but he is the equivalent of modern day poverty where the people outside are middle and upper classes. (139). Regardless of how terrible we know the circumstances he’s going through are, since it doesn’t impede on our own personal joy it’s okay that he suffers. Although they once felt for this child, “Their tears of bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and accept it” (141). They used to want to help but when they realized if it wasn’t him, it would have to be someone else. If it was anyone else, it would be a person who has known freedom and will have it taken from them. In their opinion, the boy isn’t even smart enough to understand the bad he is going through. He also used to fight it and cry but he gave up and became complacent with where he was. The boy can be seen as the lower classes, because he may have started fighting, but when he

It almost creates the feeling in the reader that these people in Omelas are not helpless about their situation, but they just do not care about anyone except themselves. Furthermore, this leads to the point that the people of Omelas are self-centered and generally selfish towards their so-called lavish situation; though people may feel as if the demise of one person saves the well-being of hundreds in the overall population. This would be a primary reason as to why Omelas appears to be a city of happiness and well-being to others that know about their town. In the end, the people of Omelas are ultimately keeping this child as a societal secret so that no others that are either entering or being forced to leave from the city would be concerned about its status, and the people of Omelas can maintain their happy lives with no questions about the method of keeping it that

The story says, “but they all understand that their happiness… depend wholly on this child's abominable misery (Guin 5).” Why would this be? Look at the negative aspect of successful societies. Germany right before WW2. Germany was a broke country, with no infrastructure. The Nazi party gained public traction by assigning hate to the Jewish community. The Nazi party used Jews as their outlet for public angry. The jews have money when we are poor, the jews are the reason for Germany’s downfall. Germany’s infrastructure and economy started to rebuild at rates never seen before in World economics, simply because the public was connected, although by hate, such connection made them organized and unified. Germany was prosperous and advanced for its’ time much like Omelas. Omelas could be doing a similar thing. This child is on display, people choose to visit the “attraction” to relive their built-up frustrations or angers. This child is continuously in agony. This could be, for Omelas, as well as be therapy for the common man. This might not make sense to sane individuals, but, from a community that has seen this torture since an early age, it is going to be normalized. If this child fills the gap for society’s worst desires and needs, it would make sense the way Omelas uses it as a tool for unity and

The underlying theme in both The Hunger Games and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is sacrifice. Someone must suffer so the rest of the population can have peace, celebrate, and live in a sort of utopia. “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas” (“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”) In The Hunger Games, the Capitol terrorizes the districts so that they may all live in peace. The Capitol viewed the games as atonement, a way to pay for the sins of those who initially started the rebellion almost three-quarters of a century ago.

That is, the acquiescence of the Omelasians’ minds to believing the delusion of a sense of harmony provided by the child’s grief. One could say that all the delights present in the city—the drugs, beer, and sex—all of them seem to provide distraction from the ugly truth of Omelas. They serve as mechanisms of denial, a means in which the citizens use to hide themselves from humanity.

The citizens of Omelas are described as happy, non-violent, and intelligent. Everyone is considered equal in Omelas; there are no slaves or rulers. In Omelas, children run about naked, playing; 'merry women carry their babies"; and "tall young men wear.... flowers in their shining hair." The narrator also stresses that although the citizens are happy, they are not simple or naive; "they were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not

The Child in The People that Walked Away from Omelas is a symbol of the oppression within our own society. Through the child we’re able to reflect on the extreme effects of oppression and how it leaves a mark on society as a whole. We live in a world where success is built by a foundation based on Oppression. Success is like a chain in which the people on the base suffer to balance those on top. This idea is reinforced in the story when the child is oppressed to protect the balance in Omelas. People are oppressed based on things they can’t control such as race or class. The general theme of the story explores our own humanity and how we justify such cruelty to ourselves.