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The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Summary

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Stephanie Scott IDIS 302 Ethical Issues in Business and Society October 30, 2015 The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Summary In the story, Omelas is a utopian city of happiness and delight, whose inhabitants are smart and cultured. Everything the narrator describes of Omelas is exuberant, colorful, and great. Omelas is pure happiness except that isn’t true. The city has a terrible secret and the great prosperity of Omelas is centered on one child that has to live a life of everlasting unhappiness, despair, and squalor. The citizens are told of this secret upon their coming of age, so basically it’s their coming of age tale. …show more content…

However, those same people are eventually able to come to terms with this knowledge and decide to live their lives to the fullest somehow making them feel better that they are living a great life in spite of this child’s suffering. They figure they can at least make the child’s life worth living. However, a few of the citizens, regardless of their stage of life, make the decision to quietly separate from the city of Omelas and journey towards the unknown. This is something of a quiet protest. The story of Omelas ends by explaining the citizen’s journeys as an unimaginable place, but it’s only unimaginable for those who didn’t have the courage to allow the type of evil Omelas was enforcing by living happily within their lives and knowing there was a child living in the

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Lauren DeStefano said, “ 'dystopian, ' by definition, promises a darker story” (DeStefano). One may find this to be particularly true in Ursula Le Guin’s “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” when he is able to look past the happiness displayed proudly on the surface. Le Guin’s “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” employs dystopian elements because the story, like other dystopian works, warns about societies with trapped citizens, living in a supposedly perfect city, who fail to question the structure of their society.

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“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin exhibits many mythic qualities by incorporating glorified fantasies with grim reality. Omelas is a city made of happily ever afters happy endings, where felicity flows from the foundations of society and is steeped in custom. Although While ignorance coupled with harsh law enforcement do not dictate delight, the happiness of Omelas comes with terms even more awful and absolute. From the loathsome existence of a contemptible child springs the bliss of Omelas. Nevertheless, the rules stand: if but a single act of kindness is extended to the child, all the joy of Omelas would perish in that instant.

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The basic needs in life are considered as water, food, and reproduction, and the simple wants are “central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices” (p.2). The destruction to society could be one’s remorse for the child’s suffering. If one shows sympathy for the child and it is released from the basement, the city’s beauty and happiness will vanish. The child could represent selfless because its sacrifice is for the prosperity of Omelas. Le Guin explains that the society is a bargain between happiness and

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