Analysis Of 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas'

It is a widely-known idea that an author’s view always transpires onto their work. This is the case for “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin. In an interview with Jane Slaughter, Ursula Le Guin speaks about her personal beliefs and feminism. Due to Guin’s personal beliefs, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” contains critique about society’s injustice. To summarize, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is about a town where everyone is happy and all seems perfect. However, a dark secret loom about and a child is kept in captivity and abused. A small number of citizens cannot stand for this and leave the town. Guin infers that a society that is a proponent of war, famine, and discrimination is not a morally correct society.

When Guin wrote “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, William James’s formulation of ideals inspired it. Guin’s premise is that American society uses happiness as a scapegoat for all the awful injustices that said society commits (Hill). The fact that “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” was published in 1973 gives a lot of insight as to the symbolism of the oppressed child. The abused child in the story is symbolism as to the atrocities committed in the Vietnam War by the United States. “Ursula Le Guin wrote The Word for World is Forest in 1968—the year that her name appeared in the anti-Vietnam-War advertisement in the SF magazine” (Franklin). It is no surprise that Guin would further express anti-war beliefs in future work. Therefore, the abused child represents the victims of wars. The Vietnam war was a proxy war orchestrated to fight differentiating ideologies and said war took little interest in the lives of civilians. In the story the child has its liberty taken, has malnutrition, and is neglected as a human being. The civilians caught in the midst of the Vietnam-war were in similar situations as the child. There is a clear correlation between Guin’s advocacy for the end of the Vietnam-War and the portrayal of the child. As of 1967, the CIA reports that an estimated seventeen thousand to nineteen thousand civilians were killed in operation Rolling Thunder (Estimate Of Casualties In

Whether it be slavery or Jim Crow laws, American society had discrimination in its roots. In the “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” the author purposely asks the reader a question. The question being, how far can an individual stretch their morals for their happiness? When Ursula Le Guin writes, “Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary “it proves that Guin does have an opinion on people’s morals and decisions. In the story, imagery takes a very large role. The imagery is not only written by Guin, but rather asked of the reader to imagine what a utopia might be. Guin writes, “I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. 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”. After asking the question, the reader is faced with the fact that said utopia abuses of a child for no particular reason. Guin is commenting on racism in America at that point in time. The fact that America treated African Americans as second class citizens, and that the United States was considered a utopia-like country, was mind boggling to