“Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive” (57). In a Utopian society, everyone is happy. Ironically, utopian societies tend to be marketed as the perfect place, when really when the reality is they are dysfunctional. In The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula Le Guin suggests that a happy community needs individual sacrifices and conforming to this idea continues the sacrificing.
Community members are pressured to conform and not question traditions, even when the traditions hurt an individual. This community does not blatantly pressure these individuals, but it gives two options: to accept the tradition and stay in the happy community or leave
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The child will sit in the dark waiting for nothing, and sometimes “One of them may come and kick the child to make it stand up” (58). Kicking any living being is a appaling, but especially a child. Kicking the child shows that it is only an object. Also, the child is constantly referred to as, “it.” By giving the child pronoun that is associated with objects, not with human emotions and intelligence. The people of the town have accepted the child's mistreatment as a normal part of everyday life. The justification for this is that the child is so far dehumanized. Also, the fact that the people have accepted the treatment of the child and that strips it of its humanity. Because the torture is culturally acceptable, then it is never stopped and the child is continued to be tormented.
Communities need a sacrifice in order to have a happy place. When people conform to the cultural norms of a society, they are allowing the treatment of the sacrifice to continue. The people are pressured to fit into the community values, and when they do not, they sometimes leave. The dehumanization allows for counties torment of the child. By doing so, the society is condoning how the people abuse their chosen sacrifice. Whenever there is something that degraded it will justify its treatment, and when no one challenges it then the torture is