Ursula Le Guin's 'The One Who Walk Away From Omelas'

Many theorist believe that happiness is the only important in people's life, and all that should matter to a person is being happy. The standard of assessing a good life is how much or quantity of happiness it contains. This openness of happiness, its generosity of spirit and width of appreciation, gets warped and constricted by the claim pretending to be its greatest friend—that only happiness matters, nothing else. Robert Nozick does not on the side of hedonistic utilitarianism, he gives several examples to show that there are other elements of reality we may strive for, even at the expense of pleasure. In this essay, I will focus on Nozick's opinion of the direction of happiness and the experience

Alienation, starvation, neglect and abuse are all words that invoke unfavorable connotations and are treatments that no person would ever want to be subjected to. Living in those conditions is something that most people choose not to think about let alone witness with their own eyes. By not seeing it, they find it easier to pretend it doesn’t exist. In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula Le Guin writes about a city that from the outside looks like the perfect utopian society – a rich culture that is full of laughter, joy and peace, devoid of any violence, poverty or social inequities. Beneath the surface though hides a very dark secret that bares the true nature of Omelas. The citizens of this ostensibly flawless

In the idea of utilitarianism, people will sacrifice themselves for the betterment of others’ lives, sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly. Ursula LeGuin, the author of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, utilizes this idea to express how the society in Omelas is able to ensure happiness and perfect lives while one child suffers. This is the price that they pay, seemingly unknowingly unless they are a certain age, to have a utopian society. When someone finds out about why they live in such bliss, they are left with a choice; stay in Omelas knowing that the child must suffer for their, and everyone’s, happiness, or, to leave Omelas unknowing of what their life might entail. Today, society shows ways that we truly fulfill the idea

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.

Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on general happiness, I admit or rather earnestly maintain.

Ursula K. Le Guin is an award winning author who has made great contributions to the science fiction genera. Le Guin’s stories often evoke readers to view society through a different lens. In the short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Le Guin challenges societies conventions of imagination and believability within a narrative. I will argue, that the story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, intertwines two contradictory story worlds in an attempt to critique the limitations we impose on our imagination due to the understanding that we have never experienced a society that does not poses evil. I intend to analyze the rules of the two following story worlds that Le Guin presents; the first story world where happiness is the only thing that the inhabitants experience and the second story world where happiness is experienced when evil presents itself in the society. The two story worlds come together to push the readers to accept a world that simply functions on its own without evil.

The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas is a short story written by Ursula Le Guin. In her story, Le Guin creates a model Utilitarian society in which the majority of its citizens are devoid of suffering; allowing them to become an expressive, artistic population. Le Guin’s unrelenting pursuit of making the reader imagine a rich, happy and festival abundant society mushrooms and ultimately climaxes with the introduction of the outlet for all of Omelas’ avoided misfortune. Le Guin then introduces a coming of age ritual in which innocent adolescents of the city are made aware of the byproduct of their happiness. She advances with a scenario where most of these adolescents are extremely burdened at

Happiness is the goal; it is a state of bliss that everyone experiences at one point or another. Though, does the extreme pursuit of it, by an entire society, create adverse effects, including causing disorder and chaos? Tremendous effort can be brought forth, but to what end? What is the point of preserving a static and artificial contentment? (S. Phillip Morgan) Daily hardships can be thrown out the window, but it comes at a price.

She argues that many people who study utilitarianism find that calculating the amount of happiness is too difficult and complex. Especially considering that to calculate it properly one must look at every little detail and aspects of the scenario and judge what they believe is an appropriate score. Then comes the issue of choosing whose arguments to consider, Mill’s or Bentham’s. Another common criticism is the utilitarianism never gives us the chance to take into account our personal happiness or the ones of our best friends. Which, in a way is good because it removes all possibility of favoritism or egoism.

For utilitarian philosophers, happiness is the supreme value of life. John Stuart Mill defines Utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and privation of pleasure” (Mill, Utilitarianism). This meaning that utilitarianism is determined by the calculation of happiness, in which actions are deemed to be good if they tend to produce pleasure, a form of happiness. On the contrary, they are evil if they tend to promote pain. Not only does Mill regard to the end product of happiness in actions, but also considers the motives of such actions. In his argument, Mill defends the idea that happiness as the underlying basis of morality, and that people desire nothing but happiness.

This story was published in the year 1973; and looking at the history of what was going on in America at that time, it is impossible to say that Ursula 's writing wasn’t affected by the events occurring in that time period. The first wave feminist movement was prominent during the time, just as the Vietnam war was still being fought, as well as many technological and scientific changes occurring in the world. My argument is that Ursula wrote this story to combat the utilitarian mindset that is found is so many, especially during the 1960s-1970s, and still today. The mindset that these people in Omelas believe, that as long as it benefits the majority then harming one is not wrong. The lesson in this story while being written in the 1970s is still highly relevant today, when bringing in modern day politics and the top 10% vs the 90% in America. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is a cautionary story, that goes deep into the psyche of scapegoating and human morals.

“Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time”(Le Guin 254). In this town being happy comes at another’s suffering. In our society we tend to live for our own happiness even if that means harming others in the process. We strive for success in this world, we want money and we want to be the best. Our happiness is important to us but we are willing to take from others in order to get to our happiness.

The utopian society fabricated by Ursula LeGuin in her short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” appears, before the reader is introduced to its one inherent imperfection, to be ideal to a point of disbelief. Even the narrator doubts that her account of this utopia, despite considering the allowances given to the reader to add or remove certain aspects of the society in an attempt to render a utopia fashioned to individual desire, is a believable one. Interestingly, it is not until one final detail of Omelas is revealed, that of the boy who is kept in isolation in wretched conditions so that the people of Omelas may recognize happiness, that the existence of the

The central claim of utilitarianism is that the good is happiness. Where happiness is a desire, and happiness is the only thing desirable as an end (in of itself). All other things are desirable as a medium to acquire that final happiness. The main belief of utilitarianism is to maximize the good in the world, which is pleasure and happiness whilst minimizing the bad, which is pain and unhappiness. Both pieces “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K LeGuin and "The Experience Machine" by Robert Nozick provides arguments against utilitarianism.

At what point does a person considerer someone else’s happiness when acting in their own interest of utility. If you were to make arrangements to go to the movies with a group of friends, but shortly before decide to help a fellow scholar with an engineering project which should you choose? Based on the subject of utilitarianism, you should act in whatever way will give you the most happiness and satisfaction, and that the happiness that forms the utilitarian standard is not set by ones’ individual happiness, but also by the effect of others as well. There will be endless situations that one will find themselves in to where they will make a choice that will give them the most pleasure, or lead them to the possibility of attaining such pleasure without the presence of pain, providing them with the