The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Analysis

Although dystopian literature and cinema are popular in our generation, they speak and tell of the many difficult things that have happened to their world due to famine and war. These are the worlds we have to come to see and imagine throughout time in literature and in cinema. Showing us of how everything turned from pleasant to unpleasant in a matter of years, days, hours, and/or minutes. But these realities and worlds are not just solely made out of the blue but rather hold some truth in society today. They do this by showing the flaws of society and how perception of their audience affects the understanding of the very reality in society. Not only does dystopian society capture the attention of the audience but utopia does as well. In short a world where everything is pleasant and peaceful. As Ursula Le Guin writes in her book The Wind’s Twelve Quarters: Short Stories, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”: “As you like it” (p.2). She describes the most important thing in a utopian society and that is how things are perceived by the people living there. With all that happens and peace there has to be a price. Whether that may be a child secluded from the rest and left to suffer or sending love ones off to war.

That being said that doesn’t mean that the story doesn’t have real world implications. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. writes in “2BR02B:” “before scientist stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn’t even enough drinking water to go around and nothing to eat but sea-weed---and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jackrabbits.” This give rise to the problem of overpopulation on earth and the depletion of the natural resources that earth has in order to sustain life. Vonnegut gives a grim option of how the world would be if we implemented the laws like their child law. Which would mean one must give their life for the life of the new