What Is The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

In the story “The ones who walked away from Omelas” by Ursula K, Le Guin, Le Guin provides a notion that the cycle of inequality with in a society is intergenerational. At young ages, the children in the town are conditioned to accept inequalities within their society. Although the children disagreed with the treatment of the child locked in the basement, they later assimilated with these harsh realities. Pathing the way for brutality and systemic oppression. With the full understanding that their privilege solely exists through someone else suffering.

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.

In the book entitled, There Are No Children written by Alex Kotlowitz, he writes a story about two boys that are of coming of age in Chicago in the housing projects called Henry Horner Homes over a two year time period. In their housing projects, the family faces many hardships and struggles to survive in life due to the influence of gangs, violence, death and poverty that consumes their housing projects. Living in such a bad neighborhood like Henry Horner homes proves the fact that “there are no children here” in the housing projects because the children have seen so much crime, violence and death occur that they have lost their youth and innocence as children and have been forced to become adults. An example of one character that changed dramatically due to the horrible conditions of in the projects was Lafeyette Rivers, one of the two main characters in the novel. The three most important events that impact Lafeyette’s life for the worst were the death of his best friend Craig, when his mother told him that he would be forced to become a young adult, and finally being convicted of a crime he did not commit in the first place. These three major events in his life greatly impact Lafeyette over the two year time period it causes Lafeyette to lose all hope in life and as well to live in constant fear of death and of his housing projects.

To begin, in the first part of the story, a city called Omelas and its inhabitants are described as one happy community, but a negative connotation on the city and its people is implied as the story progresses.”They were not simple folk, you see… How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children- though they were, in fact happy” (242-243). This passage implies that the people of Omelas, including children, are not so innocent by saying they were not naive, suggesting the idea that their morality is in fact, stained. The fact that the author also commented on the people of Omelas as “not simple folk” gives the story a mysterious feel. The negative connotation is also evident in this passage, simply because of how the author worded this quote. Still, just how bad is the morality of the people of Omelas? This question is answered by the text as it continues.

In today’s world one of the most important things is education and they way citizens’ think. One example, of a control method in both society’s is to control citizens’ consciousness and education. In the society of “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” citizens have happy consciousness, but are educated of the child who has to suffer. Which makes citizens’ of Omelas feel bad because of the suffering the child has to experience. As stated in “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” “The know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the one one, the flute-player could make no joyful music…”(3) This quote shows that the suffering that child goes through is for the benefit of the others of Omelas. In contrast to the “Brave New World”

Towards the end, Le Guin explains that some people leave Omelas after seeing the child, no matter where it brings them. In the very last paragraph, it states, “At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, [they do] not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home….[they] walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates.” (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 736). The people who found displeasure in the system just got up and walked away, so they would not take place in it anymore. The fifth to last sentence is “They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back.” (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 736), which tells the reader how the less selfish people will be willing to walk straight into the unknown, into the darkness, just to prove how much they truly believe something is

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 story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin the citizens of a town called Omelas are said to be very happy. The people are prosperous, talented, and peaceful. However, this fictional city has a dark secret masked by the prosperity and happiness that the citizens enjoy. This prosperity is at the expense of a single suffering child imprisoned in a basement. The town’s residents are apparently so shocked by the discovery that some leave town but many stay knowing that a child is suffering so that they may remain “happy” (Le Guin, 1993). The conflict in this story is man vs man. More precisely, this is man struggling with his own conscience. Residents struggle to respond to a town in which the suffering of others is ignored and in some cases promoted. The story notes that no one can claim ignorance of the child’s suffering and its role in the town’s prosperity. “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there” (Le Guin, 1993). At this point in the story, the conflict of conscience

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

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.

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.

The presence of the child removes any possibility that our city could possibly be a true utopia. Citizens of Omelas share this in hopes of not having to suffer: one for the greater good, though that does not apply to a city striving for perfection. At the hands of this city, a child is being abused to take away all the bad and channel the rest of the good to those who get to live freely. Perhaps this a metaphor for all military conflicts the United States has been involved in since the end of World War II, we are unable to face domestic problems; hence we get involved in countries that “need” our American help. The “happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, ect…” (261) is dependent on this one child’s Christ-like sacrifice.

“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 people in Omela all know it has to be there, their happiness depends on it. It is a young boy or girl around the age of ten, it is feeble minded. The young child is locked in the basement of a house in Omela and is neglected. Every so often, someone peers in on the young child with frightened and disgusted eyes. “If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place… that would be a good thing indeed, but if it were to be done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed,” (Le Guin, 4).

Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is a plotless, philosophical fiction. Written in 1973, Le Guin tells the dark narrative of a fictional town which lives in peace with itself. The seemingly happy town houses a dark secret, one so dark that citizen’s of the town leave to escape it. Ursula Le Guin does this by using authorial intrusion, withholding information, and encouraging her readers to think.