Ursula K. LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Essay

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 of Omelas live in a utopian society where there is no guilt, and everyone exists in constant bliss. However, later in the story there

In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin the theme is that in order to be truly happy, one must stand up for what’s right, even if it means leaving everything that they know. Society creates traditions and ways of thinking that are not easy for everyone to follow. In Omelas, the citizens have the choice to ignore the suffering of a child locked in a cellar, or leave the life and the city they are familiar with. The people of Omelas must ask themselves whether it is better for a child to suffer for the city’s happiness and wealth, or should the city suffer, just to give the child a shot at happiness? It is ironic because Omelas is a

Throughout The Cask of Amontilllado, we see Fortunato continually displaying his arrogance (which eventually becomes hubris). The adamancy with which he belittles Luchresi, offers a window into his common personality. At the beginning of the short story, one cannot help but think that the narrator, Montresor, exaggerates the “thousand injuries of Fortunato”; however, in my opinion, Poe showcases Fortunato’s distasteful character as a means of making that early statement feasible. What if Montresor is not insane, but rather, pushed to his limits by an egotistical and verbally abusive “gentleman”. The latter statement may be particularly obvious, but the magnitude to which those apparent traits are applicable is what has and will continue

To answer the question, How is the utopian society Anarres structured, one can attack it at many ways. First one can look at the cultural context of the time period in which the novel was written. LeGuin wrote The Dispossessed in 1974. One can argue that the community of Anarres was in inspired by the social movements of the late 1960's and early seventies. The civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, and the 60's counter culture or "hippie" values are all reflected in the culture and society of Anarres.

The people of Omelas have lost this because there is no pursuit of happiness; there is no challenge. Their happiness is simply given to them at the expense of

All of Omelas “happiness is based on discrimination of what is necessary.” F they wish to consume drugs or have endless sex, they can simply do so. The only “victory they celebrate is that of life.” Their

It is very surprising that the people of Omelas actually lived “happy” lives at the will of the child, knowing the conditions he lived in. It is hard to tell if Ursula K. Le Guin is trying to persuade the reader that the people living in this utopian society are genuinely happy or pretending to be

Ursula K. Le Guin’s short work of fiction, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, remains memorable in both its theme of injustice and its unique presentation of the raw human emotion in reaction to it. Finding parallels with other notable works such as George Orwell’s 1984, the short story gives the reader with a quick abstract of a moral tale. It offers an ethical rejection of injustice through its actors – the people that choose not to live within Omelas, refusing utopia, and walking away guided by a sense of moral purpose. The story connects with readers through its many themes. Notably, it parallels the realities in our world of injustice, anger and frustration, despair and powerlessness,

Authored by Ursula Le Guin in 1973, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, is a short story which analyzes the trade-offs which people make during their lifetime. In a simple and straight forward manner, the narration describes a fictional city, Omelas, whose residents live in bliss and sheer happiness: “In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer ever approaching, a cheerful sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bell” (Le Guin 1). Here, Ursula describes the warm and welcoming ambience of the city, emphasizing on the conducive environment that the residents enjoyed. A society devoid of slavery or the occasional political bureaucracies made living in Omelas even more enjoyable and enviable.

Since the beginning of mankind, our species has been trying to design the perfect society. Today, we refer to the idea of this “perfect civilization” as a utopia––a place where everyone can achieve happiness. Though the exact definition of the word utopia has changed over time––the Greeks, for instance, presented a society ruled by philosopher-kings; Moore’s work, Utopia, proposed an island in which all property belonged to everyone. Despite all this planning and proposing, though, there has never been a perfect city, a perfect neighborhood, or even a perfect household. Yet many still think that such a time could come to pass, and they dare to hope for a future in which everybody is truly equal. In Ursula Le Guin’s story “The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas,” it seems like humankind has succeeded in this endeavor.

It is stated a few times that the writer wants to declare that they are not simple. She claims that, “. . . we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting” (1). The narrator, in fact, does not offer any more details explaining her statement about the people. She is determined to convince the reader that happiness does not equal stupid, but it leaves the reader to believe that the citizens are rather short sighted. This assumption is later challenged when it is written that the one thing “there is none of in Omelas is guilt” (2). It later is revealed that their lack of guilt coincides with their happiness. Their happiness isn’t from innocence, but it is from their willingness to sacrifice someone for the benefit of themselves. When a child learns of the human sacrifice, they are sad and outraged, but it eventually passes. The narrator states, “Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced his terrible paradox” (4). But the story goes on to show that they get over it, and the guilt wears off and disappears. This drives them to their happiness and their acceptance. They believe that the child is already

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.

Omelas is considered “perfect” in every way; there is an abundance of food, perfect weather, and everything is considered beautiful there. The narrator states “Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary

“If the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a specific and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain”? This is a quote from the American philosopher William James that largely inspired the story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” written by Ursula K. Le Guin. Ursula though born in California, currently resides in Portland Oregon. Her mother was a writer and her father an anthropologist. She thought of the name Omelas when she saw a road sign for Salem Oregon.