“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin is a short story that presents a controversial issue. The story depicts a Utopian city within which all of the citizens are happy and want for nothing. There is no king nor government, no police nor military. Every citizen lives in peaceful harmony. It is a beautiful, thriving Utopia.

However, Omelas holds a dark secret.

In a room that sits directly under the city, a child lies imprisoned. This child has been captive there for many years. It is severely malnourished, neglected and beaten regularly. This child will remain captive here for a long time, for the whole Utopian city of Omelas relies upon the suffering of this child.

“Their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kind weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (Le Guin,3) and

The story goes on to explain how between the ages of 8 and 12 the children of Omelas are made aware of this child’s suffering. How, at first many are outraged and disgusted, but eventually, become numb to the suffering of the child as it means they can live happily. For some however, the guilt is too much, they cannot stand this injustice and so they leave the city, they are “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.

This story reads almost like some form of psychology problem, it is similar to the Trolley Problem( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem ). Does the suffering of one child justify the successful continuation of a nation? Many people argue that it does, stating that even if one were to free the child, it has been so neglected and mistreated that it would not be able to adapt and conform to society therefore, it is more beneficial to keep the child in captivity.

At a first glance, this story seems like nothing more than a far fetched science fiction plot. However, Sargent believes that it has some real life applications stating:

“When asked if they would be willing to lower their standard of living so that people in the Third World could raise theirs, most Americans say “”No””. In fact, many take the position that the Third World should restrict its development so as not to further negatively affect the environment in the developed world” (Sargent, 228)

To conclude, this short story succeeds in creating an interesting discussion about a morally ambiguous problem. Le Guin proposes interesting comparisons to the contemporary world without making some grandiose political statement. So the final question is:

Would you walk away from Omelas?

References:

Lyman Tower Sargent “The Problem of the “”Flawed Utopia””: A Note on the Costs of Eutopia.

Tom Moylan, Raffaella Baccolini “Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination”

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